At a coffee shop getting served. I asked them to take a picture of me and they did but this one was taken by Arthur Bloom.
What an eventful birthday but honestly, dear reader, did you expect anything else?
I had a lovely day meeting with journalists and ate Ukrainian food for lunch and French Moroccan food for dinner. I even snuck in a dinner date which went exceedingly well though that’s none of your business.
Along the way I got served at one of my favorite coffee shops! I was expecting this and to be honest, I was kind of looking forward to it. I don’t really fear courtrooms and love the opportunity to make my case before a judge or jury. I sort of feel a bit like Rohrsach in the Watchmen:“None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me."
Speaking of understanding my understanding is that billionaire John Burbank is backing Hal Lambert’s lawsuit against me. That makes sense because Hal was dodging process servers when I tried to have him served. Naughty, naughty Hal!
But this is somewhat rich because I introduced Lambert and Burbank way back when I brought them into Umbra — a synthetic aperture radar satellite — in 2020. Neither one particularly liked the other but I made peace. Whoops.
A fraud can often unite the co-conspirators. Both men tried to cheat me out of that deal and I sued Hal Lambert earlier this year.
John’s not a good person, which is something I learned over the years that I knew him. I had many occasions to observe him. I vacationed and stayed at his properties in Healdsburg, San Francisco, Miami (twice!) and London. John was even part of a few signal groups until he ragequit when I said Joe Biden would be a good president.
Oh well. Everything was recorded, everything was noted, everything is in email and in text messages. Yes, I screenshotted them all but I also know that my friends in GCHQ, la piscine, Mossad and the NSA know what’s up. I’m not sweating it.
What do I have to do over here to get a GenXer to do a straight business deal? I’m not down to be GenXploitated.
My understanding is that John and his firm Passport Capital is a front for a certain part of the Russian and Chinese world and he gets most of his money from the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. His late father — John “Jock” Burbank — did a lot translation work for and acted as John’s handler. In effect John Burbank inherited Jock Burbank’s Russia network.
I’m further told that the Russians and Saudis who had been backing Burbank at not too pleased at his behavior or his investments.
John Burbank is a hedge fund manager and former hot dog salesman—like Ignatius J. Reilly—who was plugging Chinese Internet companies a decade ago, and he’s deeply involved with the Saudis. After closing his main fund, he got really into crypto, and his philanthropy backs all kinds of left-wing causes out in California, though that’s probably his ex-wife’s job.
He taught in China after college, and according to his Forbes profile is extremely unenthusiastic about the United States. When you have a guy who’s unenthusiastic about America, invests a bunch of money abroad, then gets into cryptocurrency, you start to wonder if we’re dealing with a traitor here.
One interesting thing about him is he maintained his ties with the Saudis even after the Khashoggi dismemberment. Here he is with Matt Michelsen, the weird character tied to the Texas slush funds:
Suffice it to say, after cheating me on several tech deals in genomics, facial recognition, robotic submarines and satellites, I didn’t really want to have a close relationship with John. Nor apparently do other tech investors or founders.
I was creeped out with Burbank’s behavior toward women — something he has in common with Hal Lambert, who despite being married, is rather lecherous. A little womanizing is fine — heterosexuality isn't yet a crime — but too much is a bit gauche.
John demanded that I sign a nondisclosure argument and I refused. John offered to buy me out of all my positions — again I refused. I offered instead to buy him out. He did not like that.
As I said I’m not keen to be exploited but such is my dharma. I’ll meet the challenges in front of me by telling the truth and exposing the criminal networks.
Like Hal, John has a lot of problems and those problems will continue as more of the world’s intelligence services continue to pay attention. I welcome their scrutiny and the attention of the responsible press.
John’s protégés include Anne Wojcicki of 23 & Me fame. He was also a big backer in Israeli spyware gaming company McLovin.
John’s fixer was one Matt Michelsen, the human trafficker tied into Governor Greg Abbott of Texas. From what I understand Michelsen even introduced John to his baby mama.
Isn’t it interesting that the same person interested in exploiting young people would be interested in human trafficking?
