They can steal by printing more money for themselves and yet that is not enough. They want even commissions for doing the printing...
Bribe probe hits former Malay PM
Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker
July 5, 2011
The Reserve Bank of Australia's banknote firms are suspected of attempting to bribe former Malaysian prime minister Abdullah Badawi in order to get his help to win a $31 million currency contract.
Mr Abdullah is one of a several highly influential Malaysian political figures whom anti-corruption authorities believe Securency and Note Printing Australia— firms respectively half and fully owned and overseen by Australia's reserve bank— allegedly sought to bribe using part of $4.2 million in commission payments made to two Malaysian middlemen.
Malaysian sources confirmed to The Age that the Australian Federal Police have gathered information about attempts to bribe Mr Abdullah by Securency and Note Printing Australia, which are respectively half and fully owned and overseen by the RBA
The Age sought comment from Mr Abdullah last night.
Asked about the approach to Mr Abdullah yesterday, an AFP spokesman said: "Given that matters relating to investigations into Securency International and Note Printing Australia are currently before the court, the AFP is unable to make any further comment."
It is understood the attempt to bribe Mr Abdullah related to contract negotiations that occurred around 2003, the year he became prime minister and finance minister. He served as prime minister until 2009.
Before becoming prime minister, Mr Abdullah was deputy to long-serving Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad.
The alleged attempt to bribe of Mr Badawi, who remains a serving MP, adds to the list of high-profile Asian politicians and central bank officials targeted by the RBA firms.
The AFP last week alleged Securency bribed Vietnam's former central bank governor by paying his son's English university tuition fees. Authorities in Malaysia last Friday arrested a former Malaysian central bank assistant governor accused of receiving two bribes from NPA.
The revelations about the attempt to bribe Mr Abdullah come as the fallout from Australia's plastic note bribery scandal continues to spread, with The Age reporting yesterday about the intimate involvement of senior officials from the Australian government trade agency Austrade in Securency's allegedly corrupt Vietnam dealings.
An AFP-led international corruption taskforce continues to work towards further arrests, having already charged seven former senior Securency and NPA executives with foreign bribery offences.
Mr Abdullah is believed to have been involved in approving the contract won by the RBA firms to supply Malaysia with its polymer five Ringgit note, which began circulating in 2004.
Securency and NPA's agents for the 2004 were former state MP and senior figure in the country's ruling party, UMNO, Dato Abdullah Hasnan Kamaruddin and arms trader Abdul Kayum, who was arrested and charged on friday with two counts of bribery.
Mr Kayum, who pled not guilty to the charges, worked as NPA and Securency's main middleman in Malaysia and allegedly promised the firms that he was able to convince senior Malaysian officials to buy the plastic bank note technology.
Several senior Securency and NPA former executives are believed to have been aware that payments to Mr Kayum may have been used to pay bribes. He acted as their agent between 2000 and 2007, before being sacked after an internal audit raised probity fears.
His hiring and subsequent receipt of several million dollars from the RBA firms raises further questions about the adequacy of supervision provided by the RBA-appointed directors of Securency and NPA.
Mr Kayum also represented one of the Pakistan Government's main weapons making facilities, the Air Weapons Complex, which is believed to play a central role in the nation's nuclear weapons program.
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission yesterday refused to confirm or deny whether it was investigating the performance of the Securency and NPA boards after Greens leader Bob Brown and federal Labor backbencher Kelvin Thomson suggested last Friday that it should.
Former RBA deputy governor Graeme Thompson, who is also a former chief of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, chaired Securency and NPA during the 1999-2005 period the alleged bribes in Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia took place.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/bribe-probe-hits-former-malay-pm-20110704-1gz6c.html#ixzz1TMkmDa25
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Who the Hack is Running the Country?
According to reports, these fellas had eavesdropped on thousands of people's voice mails and messages over at least a decade, and the British police had closed an eye to the whole thing until recently when these fellas were on the verge of buying BskyB (below you will see why the British politicans are now sufficiently alarmed to raise the alarm).
Apparently, those fellas control so much of the country's news organsations that for the last few decades anyone that The Sun (owned by the same fellas) supported ended up winning the country's elections.
Quote: 'If you do not read newspapers you are uninformed, if you do you are misinformed' - Mark Twain
As a result, all their politicians from all parties had 'coddled up' to these fellas and employed their employees as their 'press czars'.
For those that cannot get it, here's the reason: by doing that they hope to get the 'support' of those fellas' newspapers, TV stations etc and thus 'win' elections.
[side note: Anyone familiar with US financial regulatory history would know that this is akind to the US government appointing employees of large banks (like Goldman Sachs) as their financial czars]
They reportedly even 'tapped' Gordon Brown's (the previous PM) phone for years from when he as finance minister to prime minister and that bugger apparently did not even know about it until now!
That and the fact that those fellas had 'eavesdropped' on an 'industrial scale' on thousands of people for so many years tells us a few things.
That country's political leaders and government were either not aware of the whole thing, or they were aware but too 'afraid' to antagonise those devils and have them turn their 'news' against them. In both cases, one wonders who are the ones really running that country.
For the benefit of children in my mail list, one does not have to have direct control of a country to be in control of it. It is the same reason why a lead British financier (Lord Rothschild) from 100 plus years ago once claimed that 'I care not who sits on the throne of the British empire. The one who controls its finances controls the empire, and I control its finances'.
The recent behaviour of those fellas in response to the 'recent revelations' are also telling (and these are just the ones I am aware of).
- the father refused to attend the British parliament inquiry on the matter and instead now says that he will setup his own 'independent' committee to investigate all charges (yah, a thief tells the whole country to bugger off and says he will pick his own judge),
- he also says that it is just a 'minor mistake' (stealing from thousands of people is a minor mistake to him)
- when asked what is the most important thing to him now that the case is 'blown up' he pointed to his CEO and said 'to save her' (that woman was the head of his british operations at the time of those 'hackings' and many people were calling for her to be charged). You see what is important to those people. It is not justice but his fellow tribeswoman by name of Rebekah
- his son tells the same parliamentary committee that he will appear at a date of his own choosing!
For those that do not know - all those devilish characters above are from one single race. Coincidence? Not really. They are people that many fools say are 'god's chosen people'.
So now you can see why those fellas talk and behave as if they are 'kings'? That is why I say chinamen that go round telling others that Jews are 'god's chosen people' are complete idiots (for those idiots will be dying to suck up to those people).
Some notes on 'phone hacking':
A few days ago a local Singapore newspaper ran an article written by some local 'electronic games developer' that talked about how easy it is for people to 'hack' into other people's phone mails and messages. According to that 'expert', the method is to 'imitate' the phone's owner and try to log into the owner's voice and message box, and it is quite easy as most people do not bother to change the default passwords assigned by telcos.
Yah, only simpletons believe that people that do it on 'industrial scales' take that route. There are easier ways like gaining control of the telcos' computers or just simply having access to them (i.e. be on the inside).
Despite the impression that 'phone hacking' is something different, it is actually computer hacking and there is no difference between the two. At the core of the entire 'modern phone system' is nothing but many computers acting as switches and as storage so that phone users can sign in later to retrieve. So with so many computers all over the network, it would not be surprising that copies of those mails and messages are siting on multiple computers which makes it all the easier get to from the inside.
Thus, those fellas above did not have to hack into people's phones and unlikely even to have to pretend to be the rightful owners. It is more likely that they were accessing those computers from the inside and did not even have to hack into those computers. Remember: the ones that control those computers can access anything they want and that is the easiest and most efficient way of getting people's mails if you are operating on an 'industrial scale'.
So and unless you think the ones managing those telco networks are total idiots that did not really know what was happening, you imagine what sort of 'power' is needed for that to happen?
People with that sort of reach don't do things the way the average joe or joker does, or the way they think things are done...
Rupert Murdoch attacks Gordon Brown in first interview since NoW closed
Speaking to Wall St Journal, media tycoon defends News Corp's handling of scandal and says MPs' comments are 'total lies'
David Batty
guardian.co.uk, Friday 15 July 2011
Rupert Murdoch has attacked Gordon Brown in a fierce defence of News Corporation's handling of the phone hacking scandal. Murdoch accused British MPs of lying about allegations of corrupt practices at his newspapers
In his first interview about the crisis that has engulfed his media empire, Murdoch said some MPs' comments on the scandal were "total lies" and singled out Brown for criticism over the former prime minister's accusation that News International was guilty of "law-breaking on an industrial scale".
The media baron said Brown "got it entirely wrong" when he alleged that Murdoch's British papers had used "known criminals" to get access to his personal information when Labour was in power.
"The Browns were always friends of ours" until the Sun withdrew its support for Labour before the last general election, he told the Wall Street Journal, his flagship US paper.
On Twitter, Murdoch's biographer Michael Wolff said he "seemed genuinely distressed about Gordon Brown not liking him anymore."
Murdoch said he had agreed to appear before the Commons culture, media and sport select committee after being told he would be summoned to a hearing on the hacking scandal next Tuesday. He said he wanted to address "some of the things that have been said in parliament, some of which are total lies."
The summons was issued after Murdoch said he would not give evidence to the committee until after having appeared before the public inquiry chaired by Lord Justice Leveson.
Murdoch, who will join his younger son James and News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks at the hearing, added: "We think it's important to absolutely establish our integrity in the eyes of the public."
The chairman and chief executive of News Corp also defended the company's handling of the crisis, claiming it had made only "minor mistakes".
The damage to the company was "nothing that will not be recovered," he said, adding that the company had a great reputation in the US.
He admitted "getting annoyed" about the negative media coverage of the scandal but said: I'll get over it."
Amid growing calls from News Corp shareholders for James Murdoch to step down as the chairman of BSkyB, his father also attempted to quash speculation that the scandal had dashed the chances of his younger taking over his media empire.
Rejecting criticism that James Murdoch had reacted too slowly to the scandal, he said: "I think he acted as fast as he could, the moment he could."
He also claimed that his own his reponse to the situation had been prompt and appropriate.
"When I hear something going wrong, I insist on it being put right," he said.
He also denied there were plans to sell News International, or separate it from the rest of News Corp, describing such reports as "pure rubbish".
"Give it the strongest possible denial you can give," he added.
But Murdoch said it would set up an independent committee to "investigate every charge of improper conduct" made against News International.
The committee would be headed by a "distinguished non-employee" and also establish a "protocol for behaviour" for new reporters across the company.
Apparently, those fellas control so much of the country's news organsations that for the last few decades anyone that The Sun (owned by the same fellas) supported ended up winning the country's elections.
Quote: 'If you do not read newspapers you are uninformed, if you do you are misinformed' - Mark Twain
As a result, all their politicians from all parties had 'coddled up' to these fellas and employed their employees as their 'press czars'.
For those that cannot get it, here's the reason: by doing that they hope to get the 'support' of those fellas' newspapers, TV stations etc and thus 'win' elections.
[side note: Anyone familiar with US financial regulatory history would know that this is akind to the US government appointing employees of large banks (like Goldman Sachs) as their financial czars]
They reportedly even 'tapped' Gordon Brown's (the previous PM) phone for years from when he as finance minister to prime minister and that bugger apparently did not even know about it until now!
That and the fact that those fellas had 'eavesdropped' on an 'industrial scale' on thousands of people for so many years tells us a few things.
That country's political leaders and government were either not aware of the whole thing, or they were aware but too 'afraid' to antagonise those devils and have them turn their 'news' against them. In both cases, one wonders who are the ones really running that country.
For the benefit of children in my mail list, one does not have to have direct control of a country to be in control of it. It is the same reason why a lead British financier (Lord Rothschild) from 100 plus years ago once claimed that 'I care not who sits on the throne of the British empire. The one who controls its finances controls the empire, and I control its finances'.
The recent behaviour of those fellas in response to the 'recent revelations' are also telling (and these are just the ones I am aware of).
- the father refused to attend the British parliament inquiry on the matter and instead now says that he will setup his own 'independent' committee to investigate all charges (yah, a thief tells the whole country to bugger off and says he will pick his own judge),
- he also says that it is just a 'minor mistake' (stealing from thousands of people is a minor mistake to him)
- when asked what is the most important thing to him now that the case is 'blown up' he pointed to his CEO and said 'to save her' (that woman was the head of his british operations at the time of those 'hackings' and many people were calling for her to be charged). You see what is important to those people. It is not justice but his fellow tribeswoman by name of Rebekah
- his son tells the same parliamentary committee that he will appear at a date of his own choosing!
For those that do not know - all those devilish characters above are from one single race. Coincidence? Not really. They are people that many fools say are 'god's chosen people'.
So now you can see why those fellas talk and behave as if they are 'kings'? That is why I say chinamen that go round telling others that Jews are 'god's chosen people' are complete idiots (for those idiots will be dying to suck up to those people).
Some notes on 'phone hacking':
A few days ago a local Singapore newspaper ran an article written by some local 'electronic games developer' that talked about how easy it is for people to 'hack' into other people's phone mails and messages. According to that 'expert', the method is to 'imitate' the phone's owner and try to log into the owner's voice and message box, and it is quite easy as most people do not bother to change the default passwords assigned by telcos.
Yah, only simpletons believe that people that do it on 'industrial scales' take that route. There are easier ways like gaining control of the telcos' computers or just simply having access to them (i.e. be on the inside).
Despite the impression that 'phone hacking' is something different, it is actually computer hacking and there is no difference between the two. At the core of the entire 'modern phone system' is nothing but many computers acting as switches and as storage so that phone users can sign in later to retrieve. So with so many computers all over the network, it would not be surprising that copies of those mails and messages are siting on multiple computers which makes it all the easier get to from the inside.
Thus, those fellas above did not have to hack into people's phones and unlikely even to have to pretend to be the rightful owners. It is more likely that they were accessing those computers from the inside and did not even have to hack into those computers. Remember: the ones that control those computers can access anything they want and that is the easiest and most efficient way of getting people's mails if you are operating on an 'industrial scale'.
So and unless you think the ones managing those telco networks are total idiots that did not really know what was happening, you imagine what sort of 'power' is needed for that to happen?
People with that sort of reach don't do things the way the average joe or joker does, or the way they think things are done...
Rupert Murdoch attacks Gordon Brown in first interview since NoW closed
Speaking to Wall St Journal, media tycoon defends News Corp's handling of scandal and says MPs' comments are 'total lies'
David Batty
guardian.co.uk, Friday 15 July 2011
Rupert Murdoch has attacked Gordon Brown in a fierce defence of News Corporation's handling of the phone hacking scandal. Murdoch accused British MPs of lying about allegations of corrupt practices at his newspapers
In his first interview about the crisis that has engulfed his media empire, Murdoch said some MPs' comments on the scandal were "total lies" and singled out Brown for criticism over the former prime minister's accusation that News International was guilty of "law-breaking on an industrial scale".
The media baron said Brown "got it entirely wrong" when he alleged that Murdoch's British papers had used "known criminals" to get access to his personal information when Labour was in power.
"The Browns were always friends of ours" until the Sun withdrew its support for Labour before the last general election, he told the Wall Street Journal, his flagship US paper.
On Twitter, Murdoch's biographer Michael Wolff said he "seemed genuinely distressed about Gordon Brown not liking him anymore."
Murdoch said he had agreed to appear before the Commons culture, media and sport select committee after being told he would be summoned to a hearing on the hacking scandal next Tuesday. He said he wanted to address "some of the things that have been said in parliament, some of which are total lies."
The summons was issued after Murdoch said he would not give evidence to the committee until after having appeared before the public inquiry chaired by Lord Justice Leveson.
Murdoch, who will join his younger son James and News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks at the hearing, added: "We think it's important to absolutely establish our integrity in the eyes of the public."
The chairman and chief executive of News Corp also defended the company's handling of the crisis, claiming it had made only "minor mistakes".
The damage to the company was "nothing that will not be recovered," he said, adding that the company had a great reputation in the US.
He admitted "getting annoyed" about the negative media coverage of the scandal but said: I'll get over it."
Amid growing calls from News Corp shareholders for James Murdoch to step down as the chairman of BSkyB, his father also attempted to quash speculation that the scandal had dashed the chances of his younger taking over his media empire.
Rejecting criticism that James Murdoch had reacted too slowly to the scandal, he said: "I think he acted as fast as he could, the moment he could."
He also claimed that his own his reponse to the situation had been prompt and appropriate.
"When I hear something going wrong, I insist on it being put right," he said.
He also denied there were plans to sell News International, or separate it from the rest of News Corp, describing such reports as "pure rubbish".
"Give it the strongest possible denial you can give," he added.
But Murdoch said it would set up an independent committee to "investigate every charge of improper conduct" made against News International.
The committee would be headed by a "distinguished non-employee" and also establish a "protocol for behaviour" for new reporters across the company.
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
Scrxwing the Europeans 1 by 1
See the Anglo-Saxon trick? No change to Gringo and Poodle's ratings while Iceland, Ireland, Greece, now Portugal all 'queue' in almost perfect timing. Even the gods cannot get the timing of those rating downgrades as well as those fellas...
Breaking News
Moody's downgrades Portugal into junk territory
Ratings agency Moody's has cut Portugal's main credit rating by four notches to Ba2. The group cited what it saw as a great risk that the eurozone nation would need more official financing.
Breaking News
Moody's downgrades Portugal into junk territory
Ratings agency Moody's has cut Portugal's main credit rating by four notches to Ba2. The group cited what it saw as a great risk that the eurozone nation would need more official financing.
Free Lunches (Trading using CFDs)
Only for people that want to invest in stocks ('stock playing' not encouraged). Esp those that have been using or wish to use CFD for some leverage.
Those that wish to open account with Saxo can let me know and we can have a few free lunches on the referral fee I collect.
FYI for those interested, foreign brokers like Saxo have following differences over local ('1st world brokers for 3rd world investors'?) ones:
- their 'long' CFD financing premiums are around 1.5% above interbank offered rates (for the respective currencies), and are much lower than that charged by local (con) brokers. E.g. SGD is 3+% vs 5.5% for local brokers
- they pay 'interest' for short CFD positions, local con ones charge for short too
- they do not rollover positions every month or so, local ones do that and charge 2x (sell & buy back)commissions again on each rollover. Some have 'promotions' where they 'give' waivers for some period (so nice).
In addition, the 'forced' regular rollover causes financing principal (and therefore their charge) to rise as share price goes up.
E.g. you bot your share initially at the cheap/low of $10 and price has since doubled. The local con brokers rollover your position to the new price of $20 and you end up paying interest on $20. Since foreign brokers do not rollover your position, their financing charge is based on your original purchase price $10 for as long as you hold that position.
That difference of course works the other way too i.e. as price drops, local brokers charge less financing. But then that situation should not apply as much to more savvy investors since they would more likely buy when prices are cheap and less likely to go down as much as up (if lose more often than gain, then don't invest. sure jialat).
If price drops appreciably, one can always do voluntary rollovers (self-directed sell & buyback) to take advantage of lower price (principal) and financing cost. Or simply rollover to cash position using dividends earned. That's what I (loser) do when prices drop by more than 20%...
From: Helen Yudan Zha (HZH)
To: CCK
Sent: Wed, July 6, 2011 11:12:38 AM
Subject: Saxo: Refer a friend to Saxo and receive SGD 200
Dear CCK
Good morning and thank you very much for trading in Saxo!
Do you know of someone who may benefit from our award winning SaxoTrader platform? Refer your contact to us and you may be eligible for our referral fee of SGD 200 per client !
A quick view for some terms and conditions:
Referrer (You)
- You must have a SaxoTrader account with Saxo Capital Markets Singapore
- You must have executed at least one trade
- You must Not be married to the referee
- There must be no executed or pending request for account closure
Referee (The person you refer)
- He/she must open a Saxo Trader account (min SGD 10,000 initial deposit) with Saxo Singapore
- He/she must have executed at least one trade
- He/she must not be married to you
- He/she must not have been previously registered with Saxo
- He/she must not have been previously referred to Saxo
- There must be no executed or pending request for account closure or funds withdrawal
To refer clients to Saxo
Please reply to me with your referee’s name, mobile number and email address if available. We will then follow up with your referee. Please feel free to forward my contacts to your friend. Let me know if you have any questions here.
Once you and your referee have met the conditions, your trading account will be credited with SGD 200 !
Thank you very much and have a nice day!
Yours Sincerely
Helen Yudan Zha
Manager – Private Account Management
Mailto: HZH@saxomarkets.com.sg
Phone: +6563037706
Those that wish to open account with Saxo can let me know and we can have a few free lunches on the referral fee I collect.
FYI for those interested, foreign brokers like Saxo have following differences over local ('1st world brokers for 3rd world investors'?) ones:
- their 'long' CFD financing premiums are around 1.5% above interbank offered rates (for the respective currencies), and are much lower than that charged by local (con) brokers. E.g. SGD is 3+% vs 5.5% for local brokers
- they pay 'interest' for short CFD positions, local con ones charge for short too
- they do not rollover positions every month or so, local ones do that and charge 2x (sell & buy back)commissions again on each rollover. Some have 'promotions' where they 'give' waivers for some period (so nice).
In addition, the 'forced' regular rollover causes financing principal (and therefore their charge) to rise as share price goes up.
E.g. you bot your share initially at the cheap/low of $10 and price has since doubled. The local con brokers rollover your position to the new price of $20 and you end up paying interest on $20. Since foreign brokers do not rollover your position, their financing charge is based on your original purchase price $10 for as long as you hold that position.
That difference of course works the other way too i.e. as price drops, local brokers charge less financing. But then that situation should not apply as much to more savvy investors since they would more likely buy when prices are cheap and less likely to go down as much as up (if lose more often than gain, then don't invest. sure jialat).
If price drops appreciably, one can always do voluntary rollovers (self-directed sell & buyback) to take advantage of lower price (principal) and financing cost. Or simply rollover to cash position using dividends earned. That's what I (loser) do when prices drop by more than 20%...
From: Helen Yudan Zha (HZH)
To: CCK
Sent: Wed, July 6, 2011 11:12:38 AM
Subject: Saxo: Refer a friend to Saxo and receive SGD 200
Dear CCK
Good morning and thank you very much for trading in Saxo!
Do you know of someone who may benefit from our award winning SaxoTrader platform? Refer your contact to us and you may be eligible for our referral fee of SGD 200 per client !
A quick view for some terms and conditions:
Referrer (You)
- You must have a SaxoTrader account with Saxo Capital Markets Singapore
- You must have executed at least one trade
- You must Not be married to the referee
- There must be no executed or pending request for account closure
Referee (The person you refer)
- He/she must open a Saxo Trader account (min SGD 10,000 initial deposit) with Saxo Singapore
- He/she must have executed at least one trade
- He/she must not be married to you
- He/she must not have been previously registered with Saxo
- He/she must not have been previously referred to Saxo
- There must be no executed or pending request for account closure or funds withdrawal
To refer clients to Saxo
Please reply to me with your referee’s name, mobile number and email address if available. We will then follow up with your referee. Please feel free to forward my contacts to your friend. Let me know if you have any questions here.
Once you and your referee have met the conditions, your trading account will be credited with SGD 200 !
Thank you very much and have a nice day!
Yours Sincerely
Helen Yudan Zha
Manager – Private Account Management
Mailto: HZH@saxomarkets.com.sg
Phone: +6563037706
Monday, July 04, 2011
Real Use of Temples
Aptly dedicated to the Hindu deity Vishnu (the Preserver) - the other key ones being Brahma (the Creator) and Siva (the Destroyer) - this temple managed to preserve a lot of 'kurunge' (money in Tamil).
Smart deity. Don't trust paper money and convert those things into real stuffs for storage. And that is just what the deity preserved (left behind). One wonders how much the deity have 'used' to-date.
I wonder which of the Hindu deities is the re-incarnation of 'AGNI' the Auditor General N Inspector.
Everywhere such 'holy' institutions are filled with money hoarders. Coincidence?
According to the report, the 'secret chamber' where the valuables were held had not been tempered for 140 years. You believe that?
If that is true, that means the people who hid those valuables did not want others to know about it. Why?
If those few (if not few how to keep secret?) people are the only ones that know about it, do you think they would not help themselves to some of it?
The more likely scenario is that there had been some falling out between the different people managing the 'secret chamber' and the ones who lost out (and therefore could not use those valuable anymore) threatened to spill the beans. So the others had no choice but to 'reveal' the existence of those valuables.
Note: Throughout history temples are good places to hide or store valuables because only a few 'top religious leaders' (i.e. insiders) are allowed into the temples' inner sanctums (where valuables are stored) supposedly because those places are 'super sacred'. In addition, temples enjoy fanatical protection from worshippers who would protect the temples with their lives when called to do so by those 'holy leaders' - those dumb suckers think they are protecting their gods. A good example is the Greek Parthenon which the Delian League used as their 'treasury'.
Indian temple yields priceless treasure
Russia News.Net
Saturday 2nd July, 2011
Gold and silver jewellery, coins and precious stones have been discovered in an Indian temple.
The treasure, thought to be worth billions of dollars, had been hidden in secret compartments in the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in southern India.
Indian officials have hinted that the valuable find might be worth over ten billion dollars.
While one more secret chamber is yet to be opened, thousands of necklaces, coins and precious stones have already been brought out of the underground vaults.
The secret chambers had not been tampered with for over 140 years.
The Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple is dedicated to Hindu lord Vishnu.
It was built hundreds of years ago with devotees continuing to contribute to its upkeep.
Smart deity. Don't trust paper money and convert those things into real stuffs for storage. And that is just what the deity preserved (left behind). One wonders how much the deity have 'used' to-date.
I wonder which of the Hindu deities is the re-incarnation of 'AGNI' the Auditor General N Inspector.
Everywhere such 'holy' institutions are filled with money hoarders. Coincidence?
According to the report, the 'secret chamber' where the valuables were held had not been tempered for 140 years. You believe that?
If that is true, that means the people who hid those valuables did not want others to know about it. Why?
If those few (if not few how to keep secret?) people are the only ones that know about it, do you think they would not help themselves to some of it?
The more likely scenario is that there had been some falling out between the different people managing the 'secret chamber' and the ones who lost out (and therefore could not use those valuable anymore) threatened to spill the beans. So the others had no choice but to 'reveal' the existence of those valuables.
Note: Throughout history temples are good places to hide or store valuables because only a few 'top religious leaders' (i.e. insiders) are allowed into the temples' inner sanctums (where valuables are stored) supposedly because those places are 'super sacred'. In addition, temples enjoy fanatical protection from worshippers who would protect the temples with their lives when called to do so by those 'holy leaders' - those dumb suckers think they are protecting their gods. A good example is the Greek Parthenon which the Delian League used as their 'treasury'.
Indian temple yields priceless treasure
Russia News.Net
Saturday 2nd July, 2011
Gold and silver jewellery, coins and precious stones have been discovered in an Indian temple.
The treasure, thought to be worth billions of dollars, had been hidden in secret compartments in the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in southern India.
Indian officials have hinted that the valuable find might be worth over ten billion dollars.
While one more secret chamber is yet to be opened, thousands of necklaces, coins and precious stones have already been brought out of the underground vaults.
The secret chambers had not been tampered with for over 140 years.
The Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple is dedicated to Hindu lord Vishnu.
It was built hundreds of years ago with devotees continuing to contribute to its upkeep.
Why Leaking State Secrets Can Be Dangerous
Before Gringo, Poodle and all attacked Iraq, their own weapons experts (like Scott Ritter and the man in below story) were coming out with the truth which is there were no weapons of mass destruction and that excuse for attacking Iraq was just a big lie.
There are simpletons I know that ape the main stream media in those states and their 'allies', and tell others that disclosing such state secrets is 'not good'. To them WikiLeaks is also a bad thing.
One can see why leaking state secrets can be dangerous - the ones leaking the secrets may die much sooner than the ones perpetuating the lies (Bush Jr and poodle are still kicking around...no ICC 'crimes against humanity' charges for them).
May be simpletons like elephants to be simple like them... one simple blindman telling them what an elephant looks like is sufficient. To them, other blindmen's stories especially those that deal with elephants more often (i.e. insiders) are either unimportant or 'dangerous'.
Only such simpletons would believe that men willing to risk their careers and lives to speak out for truth in the hope of saving hundreds of thousands of other people's lives would be so weak as to take their own lives just because they are 'exposed' as the source of leaks.
To such men, even the thought of some devils taking someone else's lives is below them and should be fought against (unlike cowards). You think they'd put those good lives of theirs to such simple waste?
http://worldpress.org/Europe/1405.cfm#down
Suicide and Suspicions over War with Iraq
Barry Shelby and Sarah Coleman
Aug. 13, 2003
The July 18 suicide of British Ministry of Defense (MoD) weapons expert David Kelly has intensified the ongoing British row over the reasons Britain went to war, the quality of Western military intelligence, and news media bias. British commentators from across the political spectrum agree that it also represents the most serious challenge Tony Blair’s government has yet faced.
Kelly, 59, committed suicide after being named by the government as the source for a press leak. In a conversation with British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reporter Andrew Gilligan in February, Kelly was an unnamed source who debunked Downing Street’s claim that weapons of mass destruction could be launched from Iraq within 45 minutes. That information was part of a dossier of evidence against the Iraqi regime, published by the British government last September and thought to be enormously influential in giving a moral justification for removing Saddam Hussein. Asked who had been responsible for “sexing up” the dossier, Gilligan’s source named Blair’s top press secretary Alistair Campbell.
Kelly later denied that he had been the main source for Gilligan’s story, telling a parliamentary committee on July 15 that “from the conversation I had I don't see how [Gilligan] could make the statements he was making.” By that time, Gilligan’s story was dominating the news and the pressure on Kelly was apparently intolerable. Four days after he gave his evidence, he was dead.
In the aftermath of the suicide, British commentators were divided as to whether the lion’s share of blame for Kelly’s suicide rested with the government or the BBC. Some blamed the news agency for refusing to release Kelly’s name sooner; other fingers pointed at the MoD for violating its normal rules of secrecy by telling reporters that it would confirm the mole’s name if they submitted it to the ministry. For its part, the government accused the BBC of having an antiwar bias that had led to sensationalist reporting.
“Make no mistake, this is serious,” wrote David Cracknell in the conservative Sunday Times (July 20). “Early in the Iraq dossier row, one MP said this was New Labor’s Watergate. That looked like hyperbole then. It does not now.” Kelly’s death “is not merely a political event, it is a moral event, and it has made people feel not only sad, but ashamed,” William Rees-Mogg wrote in The Times the next day (July 21).
Britain’s conservative tabloids were eager to point fingers at the BBC. “Are the BBC to blame?” asked the conservative, mass-circulation News of the World (July 20). “Maybe….It is the reputation of the BBC that will be covered in Kelly’s blood.” The Sun (July 21) was even more damning in its rhetorical questions: “The BBC is in the gutter…How can we ever trust them again?”
But others argued that it wasn’t clear exactly what the BBC could have done to save Kelly. Writing in the liberal Guardian on July 21, Jackie Ashley offered an explanation for the conservative attacks on the corporation. “The attacks on the BBC have been led by two groups—Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers and New Labor spin-doctors—which have been closely intertwined in recent years. The covert Murdoch message is clear enough: Tony, we are your real, reliable supporters, not the dodgy lefties of the BBC.”
Others cautioned against making too much of the battle between the BBC and press secretary Alistair Campbell, saying that they were simply actors in a larger drama. “Blair went to war arguing that Iraq posed an imminent threat,” said an editorial in London’s liberal Independent on Sunday (July 20). “It is not scientific advisors, or Campbell, or the BBC...who should be in the dock but the prime minister….We need [an inquiry] into the real reasons why this country was taken into a war that has claimed not only too many lives as its victims but the nation’s trust in its leaders as well.”
Blair, who was on a tour of Asia when Kelly’s death was announced, appeared visibly shaken in press conferences and immediately announced that an inquiry—led by Irish judge Lord Hutton—would be launched into the scientist’s death. He averred that he would appear before the inquiry’s commission himself. Hutton subsequently announced that he would also be calling Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon and Campbell to the witness stand.
But for some editorialists, the Hutton inquiry was doomed before its first hearing. “Limits have been imposed on Lord Hutton…His investigation, however rigorous, is likely to produce only half the story,” wrote Glasgow’s centrist Herald (July 22). “He is being asked to consider Kelly’s death as if it occurred in isolation from other events. In truth, however, it was but one part of a
larger narrative.”
British headlines after the inquiry’s first days focused on internal BBC memos indicating that Gilligan’s “loose use of language and lack of judgment” in his choice of words had been a millstone around the corporation’s neck. “BBC admits Iraq scoop was flawed,” The Times trumpeted in its top headline on Aug. 13. “Gilligan report ‘flawed,’ “ The Scotsman announced. The Guardian, which had declared itself to be “gunning for the BBC” in a July 22 editorial, conceded an “Inquiry blow for the BBC” in its lead headline on Aug. 13. Of the most prestigious British papers, only The Independent devoted its top headline to the other important revelation from the previous day’s proceedings: that Kelly had also told Susan Watts, science editor of BBC2’s Newsnight, that Campbell had insisted that the controversial “45-minute claim” be inserted into the September dossier.
In the days before the inquiry opened, the controversy had taken a new turn. On Aug. 3, Tom Kelly, the prime minister’s spokesman, referred to the Nobel Prize-nominated David Kelly as a “Walter Mitty” character. Newspaper columnists and editorialists were quick to seize on the comment as an example of the government’s desperation and increasing reliance on spin.
“The sheer incompetence and self-destructiveness of this administration’s handling of the Kelly crisis has become epic,” wrote Iain MacWhirter in Glasgow’s Herald (Aug. 6). “The government propaganda machine seems to have taken on a life of its own; has turned on its masters, and is now destroying them. Terminator meets All the President’s Men.”
“Even before Lord Hutton begins his inquiry into the death of David Kelly, the
government manages to keep itself on the front pages as if it is determined to alienate public opinion in advance of the formal proceedings,” wrote Steve Richards in The Independent. “The once-sharp antennae of the publicity-conscious New Laborites have been blunted by power, and the prospect of power for years to come.”
The reference to Mitty, the protaganist of a 1939 short story for the New Yorker whose name has become a byword for a person who dreams about a life much more exciting than his own, caused one columnist to do some literary sleuthing and to conclude that the comment was more of a compliment than a slur.
“The whole point of Thurber’s story…is that Mitty fantasizes wildly about becoming someone else, but never actually changes,” Andrew Buncombe wrote in The Independent (Aug. 7). “Mitty is a hero for every one of us who has played the lottery….So, it’s perfectly possible that, from time to time, the Nobel Prize nominee Kelly was a Walter Mitty character; but then, so, hopefully, is his namesake who tried to undermine the scientist’s reputation with such a cheap
shot.”
On Aug. 5, the day before David Kelly’s funeral, Tom Kelly apologized for the comment. Nevertheless, the centrist Financial Times felt that “Tom Kelly should be suspended,” while the conservative Daily Express described him as a “the fall guy.” There was much speculation about whether his comment had been a case of individual tactlessness, or part of a calculated strategy by the administration to smear the eminent weapons expert.
"[Tom] Kelly’s briefing was not part of a carefully planned operation,” wrote Steve Richards in The Independent (Aug. 6). “Such a development would be a clear sign the collective forces in Downing Street had gone insane. Imagine the conversation: ‘Why don’t we get it into the newspapers that we regard David Kelly as a fantasist just before his funeral?’”
“If the government is found to be engaging in the character assassination of a dead man then the implications could prove devastating. The wider public will find the whole business distasteful in the extreme,” read an Aug. 6 editorial in the Irish News. However, the paper concluded, there were larger issues at stake. “The tragic death of David Kelly looks set to dominate Tony Blair’s political life for months.”
There are simpletons I know that ape the main stream media in those states and their 'allies', and tell others that disclosing such state secrets is 'not good'. To them WikiLeaks is also a bad thing.
One can see why leaking state secrets can be dangerous - the ones leaking the secrets may die much sooner than the ones perpetuating the lies (Bush Jr and poodle are still kicking around...no ICC 'crimes against humanity' charges for them).
May be simpletons like elephants to be simple like them... one simple blindman telling them what an elephant looks like is sufficient. To them, other blindmen's stories especially those that deal with elephants more often (i.e. insiders) are either unimportant or 'dangerous'.
Only such simpletons would believe that men willing to risk their careers and lives to speak out for truth in the hope of saving hundreds of thousands of other people's lives would be so weak as to take their own lives just because they are 'exposed' as the source of leaks.
To such men, even the thought of some devils taking someone else's lives is below them and should be fought against (unlike cowards). You think they'd put those good lives of theirs to such simple waste?
http://worldpress.org/Europe/1405.cfm#down
Suicide and Suspicions over War with Iraq
Barry Shelby and Sarah Coleman
Aug. 13, 2003
The July 18 suicide of British Ministry of Defense (MoD) weapons expert David Kelly has intensified the ongoing British row over the reasons Britain went to war, the quality of Western military intelligence, and news media bias. British commentators from across the political spectrum agree that it also represents the most serious challenge Tony Blair’s government has yet faced.
Kelly, 59, committed suicide after being named by the government as the source for a press leak. In a conversation with British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reporter Andrew Gilligan in February, Kelly was an unnamed source who debunked Downing Street’s claim that weapons of mass destruction could be launched from Iraq within 45 minutes. That information was part of a dossier of evidence against the Iraqi regime, published by the British government last September and thought to be enormously influential in giving a moral justification for removing Saddam Hussein. Asked who had been responsible for “sexing up” the dossier, Gilligan’s source named Blair’s top press secretary Alistair Campbell.
Kelly later denied that he had been the main source for Gilligan’s story, telling a parliamentary committee on July 15 that “from the conversation I had I don't see how [Gilligan] could make the statements he was making.” By that time, Gilligan’s story was dominating the news and the pressure on Kelly was apparently intolerable. Four days after he gave his evidence, he was dead.
In the aftermath of the suicide, British commentators were divided as to whether the lion’s share of blame for Kelly’s suicide rested with the government or the BBC. Some blamed the news agency for refusing to release Kelly’s name sooner; other fingers pointed at the MoD for violating its normal rules of secrecy by telling reporters that it would confirm the mole’s name if they submitted it to the ministry. For its part, the government accused the BBC of having an antiwar bias that had led to sensationalist reporting.
“Make no mistake, this is serious,” wrote David Cracknell in the conservative Sunday Times (July 20). “Early in the Iraq dossier row, one MP said this was New Labor’s Watergate. That looked like hyperbole then. It does not now.” Kelly’s death “is not merely a political event, it is a moral event, and it has made people feel not only sad, but ashamed,” William Rees-Mogg wrote in The Times the next day (July 21).
Britain’s conservative tabloids were eager to point fingers at the BBC. “Are the BBC to blame?” asked the conservative, mass-circulation News of the World (July 20). “Maybe….It is the reputation of the BBC that will be covered in Kelly’s blood.” The Sun (July 21) was even more damning in its rhetorical questions: “The BBC is in the gutter…How can we ever trust them again?”
But others argued that it wasn’t clear exactly what the BBC could have done to save Kelly. Writing in the liberal Guardian on July 21, Jackie Ashley offered an explanation for the conservative attacks on the corporation. “The attacks on the BBC have been led by two groups—Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers and New Labor spin-doctors—which have been closely intertwined in recent years. The covert Murdoch message is clear enough: Tony, we are your real, reliable supporters, not the dodgy lefties of the BBC.”
Others cautioned against making too much of the battle between the BBC and press secretary Alistair Campbell, saying that they were simply actors in a larger drama. “Blair went to war arguing that Iraq posed an imminent threat,” said an editorial in London’s liberal Independent on Sunday (July 20). “It is not scientific advisors, or Campbell, or the BBC...who should be in the dock but the prime minister….We need [an inquiry] into the real reasons why this country was taken into a war that has claimed not only too many lives as its victims but the nation’s trust in its leaders as well.”
Blair, who was on a tour of Asia when Kelly’s death was announced, appeared visibly shaken in press conferences and immediately announced that an inquiry—led by Irish judge Lord Hutton—would be launched into the scientist’s death. He averred that he would appear before the inquiry’s commission himself. Hutton subsequently announced that he would also be calling Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon and Campbell to the witness stand.
But for some editorialists, the Hutton inquiry was doomed before its first hearing. “Limits have been imposed on Lord Hutton…His investigation, however rigorous, is likely to produce only half the story,” wrote Glasgow’s centrist Herald (July 22). “He is being asked to consider Kelly’s death as if it occurred in isolation from other events. In truth, however, it was but one part of a
larger narrative.”
British headlines after the inquiry’s first days focused on internal BBC memos indicating that Gilligan’s “loose use of language and lack of judgment” in his choice of words had been a millstone around the corporation’s neck. “BBC admits Iraq scoop was flawed,” The Times trumpeted in its top headline on Aug. 13. “Gilligan report ‘flawed,’ “ The Scotsman announced. The Guardian, which had declared itself to be “gunning for the BBC” in a July 22 editorial, conceded an “Inquiry blow for the BBC” in its lead headline on Aug. 13. Of the most prestigious British papers, only The Independent devoted its top headline to the other important revelation from the previous day’s proceedings: that Kelly had also told Susan Watts, science editor of BBC2’s Newsnight, that Campbell had insisted that the controversial “45-minute claim” be inserted into the September dossier.
In the days before the inquiry opened, the controversy had taken a new turn. On Aug. 3, Tom Kelly, the prime minister’s spokesman, referred to the Nobel Prize-nominated David Kelly as a “Walter Mitty” character. Newspaper columnists and editorialists were quick to seize on the comment as an example of the government’s desperation and increasing reliance on spin.
“The sheer incompetence and self-destructiveness of this administration’s handling of the Kelly crisis has become epic,” wrote Iain MacWhirter in Glasgow’s Herald (Aug. 6). “The government propaganda machine seems to have taken on a life of its own; has turned on its masters, and is now destroying them. Terminator meets All the President’s Men.”
“Even before Lord Hutton begins his inquiry into the death of David Kelly, the
government manages to keep itself on the front pages as if it is determined to alienate public opinion in advance of the formal proceedings,” wrote Steve Richards in The Independent. “The once-sharp antennae of the publicity-conscious New Laborites have been blunted by power, and the prospect of power for years to come.”
The reference to Mitty, the protaganist of a 1939 short story for the New Yorker whose name has become a byword for a person who dreams about a life much more exciting than his own, caused one columnist to do some literary sleuthing and to conclude that the comment was more of a compliment than a slur.
“The whole point of Thurber’s story…is that Mitty fantasizes wildly about becoming someone else, but never actually changes,” Andrew Buncombe wrote in The Independent (Aug. 7). “Mitty is a hero for every one of us who has played the lottery….So, it’s perfectly possible that, from time to time, the Nobel Prize nominee Kelly was a Walter Mitty character; but then, so, hopefully, is his namesake who tried to undermine the scientist’s reputation with such a cheap
shot.”
On Aug. 5, the day before David Kelly’s funeral, Tom Kelly apologized for the comment. Nevertheless, the centrist Financial Times felt that “Tom Kelly should be suspended,” while the conservative Daily Express described him as a “the fall guy.” There was much speculation about whether his comment had been a case of individual tactlessness, or part of a calculated strategy by the administration to smear the eminent weapons expert.
"[Tom] Kelly’s briefing was not part of a carefully planned operation,” wrote Steve Richards in The Independent (Aug. 6). “Such a development would be a clear sign the collective forces in Downing Street had gone insane. Imagine the conversation: ‘Why don’t we get it into the newspapers that we regard David Kelly as a fantasist just before his funeral?’”
“If the government is found to be engaging in the character assassination of a dead man then the implications could prove devastating. The wider public will find the whole business distasteful in the extreme,” read an Aug. 6 editorial in the Irish News. However, the paper concluded, there were larger issues at stake. “The tragic death of David Kelly looks set to dominate Tony Blair’s political life for months.”
Sunday, July 03, 2011
Poking Beyond Poker
Per 1st article below, poker is one of the 'fairest' gambling games in the sense that the 'house' does not get any advantage (house odds) and therefore collects 'rakes' (commission) as income.
That may be true with the real poker game i.e. the one played with real paper cards where players sit facing each other and can see what everyone else is doing, and therefore can be certain others are not cheating like peeping at others' cards or changing cards etc. Even then, quick con-men can slip 'extra' cards down their sleeves etc to create a winning hand (I only know this from watching movies).
With 'online poker' players cannot see who they are playing against and, worse, cannot see what is happening to the 'cards' in that imaginary world!
In the online world, any Java programmer knows that anything can be done, it is just a matter of programming! The ones in control can always create an extra 'thread' to see other people's 'hands', switch closed cards anyway they want, or issue to their 'own people' the desired cards 'without any one knowing'.
In real poker, the ones with better eyesight can at least catch the cheats trying to do all that but there is no chance of that happening in the 'online' world.
Which is why dumb ignorant gamblers that gamble online are the greatest suckers.
That's also why online games are 'so addictive' - it's because the people behind it can do anything they want to 'hook them' without those idiots knowing it. And those idiots actually think they are 'very great' at playing those things (sounds similar to doll-on-wood fellas?)
As they say, idiots think that 'what he cannot see, cannot be happening' (idiot is by definition one that cannot see even the obvious - like read book that says he is low-class he cannot see and yet go round bragging about his book saying he being 'god-like').
p.s. That's the reason why gringo's latest hype is 'cloud computing' where everything you do and all your data are stored in a central server somewhere (no prize for guessing where) supposedly for lower cost and higher security and availability. Millions of online fools would be rushing into that hype - they don't know how much data people already captured via Facebook, Hotmail etc.
How do you think gringo manage to 'sting' all those stupid Mohamaddans? Those I-am-out-of-Age-of-Ignorance-1500yrs-ago idiots don't even know who the heck was sending them the messages they were 'following'. Just like the other idiots I knock - don't know who wrote those books and yet go round telling others they are 'god's words' and say others that pray to other things are silly - the dumb knocking others...
That's also the reason why 'Blackberry' was so highly hyped by Gringo companies and the Indian, Chinese governments etc. banned their people from using that devil's device. Every message that is sent via one of those things is passed to a server in Canada before being forwarded to the receiver (see power of 'extra thread' above). Some Chinaman working for some gringo bank recently said that 'they can see every message I send via my phone'. I said that's because you are using a Blackberry. With that thing, they even know where that Chinaman go shit everyday!
Which was what people found out Apple was doing secretly with those iPhones - once a while that thing would 'report' those collected location information back 'home' without the owner knowing it. And when some hackers found it out and it was reported in the news, the Apple fellas claimed it was an 'oversight' (that's for fools only).
Read the 2nd and 3rd articles below and see why I knock China ape idiots - there are just so many of them.
There is more meaning to 'idiot-proof technology' than many think...
The Government's Poker Face
By Casey Research
Recently, debate in Congress over the legalization of online poker has been heating up. The clamor is a direct result of April 15, 2011, dubbed "Black Friday" in the poker community.
On this date, the FBI shut down the three largest online poker sites, seized their assets, and charged the founders with felonies. Charges included bank fraud, money laundering, and violations of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006.
UIGEA was attached at the last second to the non-controversial (and widely perceived as essential) SAFE Port Act after several previous attempts to outlaw online gambling failed to pass. Online gambling has technically been illegal since the passage of UIGEA, but until Black Friday, enforcement had generally been lax.
Poker is the most popular form of Internet gambling by far, so the reverberations throughout its community have been the largest. It is also the only form of gambling that can legitimately be considered more a game of skill than of chance, a key difference being emphasized by advocates of legalization.
We here at Casey Research generally believe that all voluntary interactions between adults should be legal, provided they don't violate another's rights. Gambling certainly falls under this category, but let's give the feds the benefit of the doubt and examine the evidence.
The odds in any form of gambling can be boiled down to the house edge, or the advantage the house has over the player. For example: the house edge in Blackjack, when played with proper strategy, is 0.8%. So for every $100 you "invest" in the game, you'd expect $99.20 back. Poker differs in that it's played against other competitors rather than the house, so the house edge is in the form of a "rake," or cut of the pot, which is typically around 5%.
Obviously, this is a raw deal for the patrons. With the exception of poker players, all gamblers are guaranteed to lose over the long run. Even poker is a zero-sum game, with the vast majority of the crowd losing money. Given these facts, it's conceivable that Congress just wants to prevent us from squandering our wealth.
Of course, the government itself offers gambling in the form of lotteries. If our benevolent Big Brother really wants to protect us from the usurious advantages of online casinos, its own gambling systems should at least offer better odds. Do they?
Not exactly. In fact, it's tough to overstate just how horrible state lottery odds really are. Your odds are 7,500% better playing craps than buying the average state lottery ticket.
We can draw many conclusions from this data, but two stand out the most. First of all, the free market provides overwhelmingly superior and cheaper gambling entertainment than does the government. No surprise there, as this principle applies to every product and service under the sun.
Second, the government's professed intention of saving us from ourselves is clearly a guise. In reality, the feds don't like when their own cut is diminished, so they attempt to eliminate or assimilate competition. As is usually the case, Washington is self-interested and is using force to enhance its own growth.
To drive the point home, the bill currently circulating through Congress would require online gambling sites to impose a 28% withholding tax on all winnings, an additional 2% federal tax would be levied on the gambling sites, and individual states would have the option of imposing another 6% tax. To top it off, the sites would be required to collect each player's personal information, such as address and Social Security Number, and provide it to the government.
And don't try to deduct gambling losses on your tax return. You can only deduct losses up to the amount of your winnings, which is the IRS's roundabout of saying the losses are not deductible.
So for all you online poker aficionados out there, we sympathize. You'll likely get your game back, but not without paying Uncle Sam his protection money your fair share.
Chinese teen offers virginity for white iPhone 4
from Yahoo News
A mainland Chinese teenage girl has been caught on Weibo in the act of selling her virginity — for a white iPhone 4.
The girl has been identified by Hong Kong's branch of NextMedia as only surnamed Wen (pictured right), from Maoming city of south China's Guangdong province. She stated in her post that her "valuable first night" — which literally means 'virginity' in Chinese — was worth the gifting of a white iPhone 4, which retails in China for RMB 4,999 for the 16-gigabyte model.
The girl, Wen, then gave out her QQ number, and encouraged young men to contact her if they were serious about the deal.
Of course, it's possible that this is a publicity stunt by a young woman who's keen to become famous. Come to think of it, that might actually be preferable to someone selling their body in some way in exchange for a soon-to-be-obsolete gadget.
My kidney for any iPad
Sadly, this isn't the sole incident of this nature this month: a few weeks ago a 17-year old Chinese boy went so far as to have a kidney removed so that he could sell it to buy an iPad 2, as reported by my colleague, Rick.
Dumb Dot
by CCK
About 10 years ago I worked for a short time in a local 'technology' company specialising in 'government contracts'. At about the same time, the company hired an Australian as CEO. It was right after the Dotcom bust and the CEO was one of the 'consultants' the local authorities hired to determine which of the many failing local IT companies were worth 'helping'.
About 6 months into his job and in front of the whole monthly management meeting, the CEO asked the IT head if it is legal in Singapore for the chairman to be reading staff mails. The answer: there is no local law against it.
Although not entirely surprised by it, out of curiosity I asked my boss about the background to that question and was told that that whiteman found out that the chairman was reading all his e-mails! (that chinaman chairman was not just reading the CEO's mails but anyone's he chose - he apparently instructed his IT fellas to send copies of 'key' people's mails to him which he reads at home).
After we resigned a few months after that and serving our 'notice periods', that whiteman got quite pally with me and told me he told the chairman's wife (who happened to be his deputy) 'to go buy some good books to read while in bed instead of reading other people's mails'. I laughed.
I also found out that something big happened about the same time when the CEO raised the above question.
The company had just hired some ex-military fella as sales rep to promote some ATM deals in Pakistan. I was initially scratching my head wondering about why that 'new business' since from what I know the company had not done any 'banking' work before - so you guess what those fellas were dealing in (hint: at that time there were some gringo 'sanctions' on military supplies to Pakistan).
Apparently, that sales fella tried to cut his own deal with the Pakistani client (some general, of course) behind the back of 'the company' but that stupid fella used his company e-mail system for that!
Don't laugh, that's a real story....
That may be true with the real poker game i.e. the one played with real paper cards where players sit facing each other and can see what everyone else is doing, and therefore can be certain others are not cheating like peeping at others' cards or changing cards etc. Even then, quick con-men can slip 'extra' cards down their sleeves etc to create a winning hand (I only know this from watching movies).
With 'online poker' players cannot see who they are playing against and, worse, cannot see what is happening to the 'cards' in that imaginary world!
In the online world, any Java programmer knows that anything can be done, it is just a matter of programming! The ones in control can always create an extra 'thread' to see other people's 'hands', switch closed cards anyway they want, or issue to their 'own people' the desired cards 'without any one knowing'.
In real poker, the ones with better eyesight can at least catch the cheats trying to do all that but there is no chance of that happening in the 'online' world.
Which is why dumb ignorant gamblers that gamble online are the greatest suckers.
That's also why online games are 'so addictive' - it's because the people behind it can do anything they want to 'hook them' without those idiots knowing it. And those idiots actually think they are 'very great' at playing those things (sounds similar to doll-on-wood fellas?)
As they say, idiots think that 'what he cannot see, cannot be happening' (idiot is by definition one that cannot see even the obvious - like read book that says he is low-class he cannot see and yet go round bragging about his book saying he being 'god-like').
p.s. That's the reason why gringo's latest hype is 'cloud computing' where everything you do and all your data are stored in a central server somewhere (no prize for guessing where) supposedly for lower cost and higher security and availability. Millions of online fools would be rushing into that hype - they don't know how much data people already captured via Facebook, Hotmail etc.
How do you think gringo manage to 'sting' all those stupid Mohamaddans? Those I-am-out-of-Age-of-Ignorance-1500yrs-ago idiots don't even know who the heck was sending them the messages they were 'following'. Just like the other idiots I knock - don't know who wrote those books and yet go round telling others they are 'god's words' and say others that pray to other things are silly - the dumb knocking others...
That's also the reason why 'Blackberry' was so highly hyped by Gringo companies and the Indian, Chinese governments etc. banned their people from using that devil's device. Every message that is sent via one of those things is passed to a server in Canada before being forwarded to the receiver (see power of 'extra thread' above). Some Chinaman working for some gringo bank recently said that 'they can see every message I send via my phone'. I said that's because you are using a Blackberry. With that thing, they even know where that Chinaman go shit everyday!
Which was what people found out Apple was doing secretly with those iPhones - once a while that thing would 'report' those collected location information back 'home' without the owner knowing it. And when some hackers found it out and it was reported in the news, the Apple fellas claimed it was an 'oversight' (that's for fools only).
Read the 2nd and 3rd articles below and see why I knock China ape idiots - there are just so many of them.
There is more meaning to 'idiot-proof technology' than many think...
The Government's Poker Face
By Casey Research
Recently, debate in Congress over the legalization of online poker has been heating up. The clamor is a direct result of April 15, 2011, dubbed "Black Friday" in the poker community.
On this date, the FBI shut down the three largest online poker sites, seized their assets, and charged the founders with felonies. Charges included bank fraud, money laundering, and violations of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006.
UIGEA was attached at the last second to the non-controversial (and widely perceived as essential) SAFE Port Act after several previous attempts to outlaw online gambling failed to pass. Online gambling has technically been illegal since the passage of UIGEA, but until Black Friday, enforcement had generally been lax.
Poker is the most popular form of Internet gambling by far, so the reverberations throughout its community have been the largest. It is also the only form of gambling that can legitimately be considered more a game of skill than of chance, a key difference being emphasized by advocates of legalization.
We here at Casey Research generally believe that all voluntary interactions between adults should be legal, provided they don't violate another's rights. Gambling certainly falls under this category, but let's give the feds the benefit of the doubt and examine the evidence.
The odds in any form of gambling can be boiled down to the house edge, or the advantage the house has over the player. For example: the house edge in Blackjack, when played with proper strategy, is 0.8%. So for every $100 you "invest" in the game, you'd expect $99.20 back. Poker differs in that it's played against other competitors rather than the house, so the house edge is in the form of a "rake," or cut of the pot, which is typically around 5%.
Obviously, this is a raw deal for the patrons. With the exception of poker players, all gamblers are guaranteed to lose over the long run. Even poker is a zero-sum game, with the vast majority of the crowd losing money. Given these facts, it's conceivable that Congress just wants to prevent us from squandering our wealth.
Of course, the government itself offers gambling in the form of lotteries. If our benevolent Big Brother really wants to protect us from the usurious advantages of online casinos, its own gambling systems should at least offer better odds. Do they?
Not exactly. In fact, it's tough to overstate just how horrible state lottery odds really are. Your odds are 7,500% better playing craps than buying the average state lottery ticket.
We can draw many conclusions from this data, but two stand out the most. First of all, the free market provides overwhelmingly superior and cheaper gambling entertainment than does the government. No surprise there, as this principle applies to every product and service under the sun.
Second, the government's professed intention of saving us from ourselves is clearly a guise. In reality, the feds don't like when their own cut is diminished, so they attempt to eliminate or assimilate competition. As is usually the case, Washington is self-interested and is using force to enhance its own growth.
To drive the point home, the bill currently circulating through Congress would require online gambling sites to impose a 28% withholding tax on all winnings, an additional 2% federal tax would be levied on the gambling sites, and individual states would have the option of imposing another 6% tax. To top it off, the sites would be required to collect each player's personal information, such as address and Social Security Number, and provide it to the government.
And don't try to deduct gambling losses on your tax return. You can only deduct losses up to the amount of your winnings, which is the IRS's roundabout of saying the losses are not deductible.
So for all you online poker aficionados out there, we sympathize. You'll likely get your game back, but not without paying Uncle Sam his protection money your fair share.
Chinese teen offers virginity for white iPhone 4
from Yahoo News
A mainland Chinese teenage girl has been caught on Weibo in the act of selling her virginity — for a white iPhone 4.
The girl has been identified by Hong Kong's branch of NextMedia as only surnamed Wen (pictured right), from Maoming city of south China's Guangdong province. She stated in her post that her "valuable first night" — which literally means 'virginity' in Chinese — was worth the gifting of a white iPhone 4, which retails in China for RMB 4,999 for the 16-gigabyte model.
The girl, Wen, then gave out her QQ number, and encouraged young men to contact her if they were serious about the deal.
Of course, it's possible that this is a publicity stunt by a young woman who's keen to become famous. Come to think of it, that might actually be preferable to someone selling their body in some way in exchange for a soon-to-be-obsolete gadget.
My kidney for any iPad
Sadly, this isn't the sole incident of this nature this month: a few weeks ago a 17-year old Chinese boy went so far as to have a kidney removed so that he could sell it to buy an iPad 2, as reported by my colleague, Rick.
Dumb Dot
by CCK
About 10 years ago I worked for a short time in a local 'technology' company specialising in 'government contracts'. At about the same time, the company hired an Australian as CEO. It was right after the Dotcom bust and the CEO was one of the 'consultants' the local authorities hired to determine which of the many failing local IT companies were worth 'helping'.
About 6 months into his job and in front of the whole monthly management meeting, the CEO asked the IT head if it is legal in Singapore for the chairman to be reading staff mails. The answer: there is no local law against it.
Although not entirely surprised by it, out of curiosity I asked my boss about the background to that question and was told that that whiteman found out that the chairman was reading all his e-mails! (that chinaman chairman was not just reading the CEO's mails but anyone's he chose - he apparently instructed his IT fellas to send copies of 'key' people's mails to him which he reads at home).
After we resigned a few months after that and serving our 'notice periods', that whiteman got quite pally with me and told me he told the chairman's wife (who happened to be his deputy) 'to go buy some good books to read while in bed instead of reading other people's mails'. I laughed.
I also found out that something big happened about the same time when the CEO raised the above question.
The company had just hired some ex-military fella as sales rep to promote some ATM deals in Pakistan. I was initially scratching my head wondering about why that 'new business' since from what I know the company had not done any 'banking' work before - so you guess what those fellas were dealing in (hint: at that time there were some gringo 'sanctions' on military supplies to Pakistan).
Apparently, that sales fella tried to cut his own deal with the Pakistani client (some general, of course) behind the back of 'the company' but that stupid fella used his company e-mail system for that!
Don't laugh, that's a real story....
Friday, July 01, 2011
Tweeting New Millenia Apes
A few thousand years ago, they copied some Sumerian idea on putting words on pieces of clay or stones and thought it was a big deal. Thus coming up with a 'great tale' about some Mossy fella with his handful of 'deitical commandments' on a clay tablet.
A couple thousand years later, they learnt to make paper from some 'Jew's bastard Arabs' who picked that trick up a few hundred years earlier from some Tang Chinamen (by then Chinamen had been writing on papers for a thousand years) and they thought it was such a great thing. Thus coming up with their claim that they are 'men of the books'. That's the reason why some Chinaman that do not know all that go round bragging to others about their 'great book of deitical words'. Tacitus ape boys...
Now those holy apes are a bit faster. They copy the idea of putting 'holy news' on the internet a few decades after the thing was invented. Slow asses getting quicker?
But then I wonder why they even have to resort to copying the use of the internet. You see, despite all my knocking at them there are still jokers that continue to tell me to 'lock yourself in a room for 1 hour and talk to (their) deity...' (implying they can do that, wah low-cost god-comms apelec...)
With such god-comms ability, any sharp child would say 'who needs internet?'
Another way of looking at it is this: if they can comms with deity everyday, how come none of them got any holy instruction on how to make paper, internet or some no-need-energy-but-can-comms-with-anything equipment before those infidels?
Then those jokers sitting in places like the Vatican etc. (and their aping Chinamen) would be able to show off something more substantive to people like me.
Some more claim they are very different from apes...
http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Science%2B%2526%2BTech/Story/A1Story20110629-286652.html
Vatican launches new website with pope's first tweet
AFP
Wed, Jun 29, 2011
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican formally unveiled its new Internet information portal news.va on Wednesday, a day after Pope Benedict XVI launched the initiative with his first Twitter message sent from an iPad.
A smiling pope was seen tapping on his iPad with the help of cardinals surrounding him in video footage released by the Vatican. The screen saver on the tablet was a picture of the pope as a young man with his family.
The 84-year-old pontiff, dressed in a white cassock at the head of a long wooden table in the Vatican, can be seen tapping on a link with the word "Publish" which does not appear to work but then scrolls through the website.
The pope used his official name in Latin - the Vatican's official language - to launch the site on Tuesday with a tweet reading: "Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI."
The website brings together news from Vatican media including the official daily Osservatore Romano, Vatican radio and television and the Catholic Church's missionary news agency which covers the developing world.
News.va will also be updating the faithful on Vatican events and important events concerning Catholics around the world through Twitter, YouTube videos and photos on Flickr. The website was developed by a Spanish web design agency.
The Vatican has embraced social media in recent months in an attempt to reach a wider and more youthful audience, as it struggles against growing secularism in society and deals with a wave of paedophile priest scandals.
A couple thousand years later, they learnt to make paper from some 'Jew's bastard Arabs' who picked that trick up a few hundred years earlier from some Tang Chinamen (by then Chinamen had been writing on papers for a thousand years) and they thought it was such a great thing. Thus coming up with their claim that they are 'men of the books'. That's the reason why some Chinaman that do not know all that go round bragging to others about their 'great book of deitical words'. Tacitus ape boys...
Now those holy apes are a bit faster. They copy the idea of putting 'holy news' on the internet a few decades after the thing was invented. Slow asses getting quicker?
But then I wonder why they even have to resort to copying the use of the internet. You see, despite all my knocking at them there are still jokers that continue to tell me to 'lock yourself in a room for 1 hour and talk to (their) deity...' (implying they can do that, wah low-cost god-comms apelec...)
With such god-comms ability, any sharp child would say 'who needs internet?'
Another way of looking at it is this: if they can comms with deity everyday, how come none of them got any holy instruction on how to make paper, internet or some no-need-energy-but-can-comms-with-anything equipment before those infidels?
Then those jokers sitting in places like the Vatican etc. (and their aping Chinamen) would be able to show off something more substantive to people like me.
Some more claim they are very different from apes...
http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Science%2B%2526%2BTech/Story/A1Story20110629-286652.html
Vatican launches new website with pope's first tweet
AFP
Wed, Jun 29, 2011
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican formally unveiled its new Internet information portal news.va on Wednesday, a day after Pope Benedict XVI launched the initiative with his first Twitter message sent from an iPad.
A smiling pope was seen tapping on his iPad with the help of cardinals surrounding him in video footage released by the Vatican. The screen saver on the tablet was a picture of the pope as a young man with his family.
The 84-year-old pontiff, dressed in a white cassock at the head of a long wooden table in the Vatican, can be seen tapping on a link with the word "Publish" which does not appear to work but then scrolls through the website.
The pope used his official name in Latin - the Vatican's official language - to launch the site on Tuesday with a tweet reading: "Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI."
The website brings together news from Vatican media including the official daily Osservatore Romano, Vatican radio and television and the Catholic Church's missionary news agency which covers the developing world.
News.va will also be updating the faithful on Vatican events and important events concerning Catholics around the world through Twitter, YouTube videos and photos on Flickr. The website was developed by a Spanish web design agency.
The Vatican has embraced social media in recent months in an attempt to reach a wider and more youthful audience, as it struggles against growing secularism in society and deals with a wave of paedophile priest scandals.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)