The time is now 5:17 pm
You last visited
May 16, 2024, 4:54 pm
All times shown are
Eastern Time (GMT-5:00)
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0805/final.pdf
Actually, the table of contents is enough to keep you busy ...
Lots of people put their career on the line for this to come to light.
I have noticed more and more that with certain TV shows, the commercials are more interesting than the program. It was bound to happen with print. This article from the Daily Telegraph "Are men boring?" is absolutley dreadful ... but some of the comments are hilarious.
Not for the humor-impaired
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2008/06/11/ftmen111.xml
...you might be pleased to know some of your $$$ is going towards building very nice cities... in Dubai, UAE.
1 ~ no dialogue, just music & pics (7 mins)
2 ~ Burj Dubai and more (3 mins)
(Hey, at least they're an ally...)
A man wants to write about life in prison, so he stands in the middle of the central square and shouts something about the head of the nation being stupid. He gets arrested and thinks he'll get a light sentence for the offense, but instead gets 10 years for uncovering a government secret.
A guy walking down the streets spreading leaflets is picked up by the secret police. They take his leaflets, but they are all blank. "What gives? What's the message?" they demand, and he replies "What's there to say, it's all self-evident!"
Interesting discussion on some of the finer points of driving (well ... traffic jams) http://amasci.com/amateur/traffic/traffic1.html if you're into abstractions.
A little history - from Badnarik (6 mins)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbNIU2KEz4g
But don't you worry, no one over here ever abuses their power... right? (3:40)
Next time I see someone saying they don't know where the drugs in their suitcase came from, I won't be so quick to roll my eyes.
http://business.iafrica.com/worldnews/324112.htm
An unsuspecting passenger who flew to Tokyo is carrying one-million yen's worth of cannabis compliments of customs authorities after a sniffer dog failed a test, officials said Monday.
An officer at Narita International Airport on Sunday stuffed 142 grams of the drug into the side pocket of a randomly selected black suitcase coming off an overseas flight so that the animal could detect it.
"The dog couldn't find it and the officer also forgot which bag he put it in," a customs office spokesperson said.
"If by some chance passengers find it in their suitcase, we're asking them to return it," she said.
The 38-year-old officer was quoted by the spokesperson as saying: "I knew that using passengers' bags is prohibited, but I did it because I wanted to improve the sniffer dog's ability."
He was reprimanded by the head of customs at Narita.
"This case was extremely regrettable. I would like to deeply apologise," said the airport's customs chief Manpei Tanaka.
The cannabis, which has a street value of one-million yen ($9680), was in a metal box wrapped with newspapers.
Japan strictly prohibits both hard and soft drugs, with people imprisoned for possession of even small amounts of cannabis.
One of my many questions is: If drugs are so strictly "prohibited", how is it they have so much of it (5oz) with which to frame some innocent person? I say "frame" because when the au-thor-i-tahs have to choose between admitting their own ineptness and putting your life or liberty in jeopardy, you had better get your "papers" in order.
Exibit A (6 mins): Relied on emergency services...
Exibit B (~1 min): Didn't ... (Took Care Of Business)
As an aside, murder investigations and trials are good for some parts of the local economy (newspaper & tv - ratings and ad revenue, detective overtime, and lawyer billable-hours) and creates demand for more 'presence'. Everyone (minus 1) wins. Remember kids, in self-defence, 'four-ten' beats 'nine-eleven'.
About 5 1/2 mins each.
Blowback - the unintended consequences of covert operations. Blowback appears (to its victims) to be random and without cause (why do they hate us?), because the public is unaware of the secret operations that provoked it.
Practical example - your teenager joins a gang. Typically, you will not be informed of this directly.
You will find out when a) your house becomes a target of rival gang members or b) the local police contact you after your teen is arrested, injured, or killed as result of 'membership'.
Know the difference. Know which one you have. Know why.
Well, there are still plenty of people who still don't get the gold vs dollar difference in maintaining spending power.
I suspect some may still be working on this money makin' system. 
Many of you older folks thought you were being hardworking and respectable for slogging through that 30 year mortgage. You got a loan small enough for you to handle, not a "liar loan", or a ka-boom... oops... balloon loan. Maybe you made an extra payment every year or you got real clever and did the "two-half-payments" trick your hotshot college kid showed you. Knocked 10-12 years off your loan for all of an extra $5 per year. Nice, eh? 
You knew people were going to be hurt buying more house than they could afford, when this housing boom went bust. No surprise there, booms and busts have been around for centuries. You were just glad it wasn't going to be you getting hurt. Well, surprise... this is the party of life and you get to be the designated driver in the good ol' Usually Shaft the Ambitious.
The latest "buy the vote" effort comes from the FDIC (p.r. wing of the banking cartel) - proposing that Congress authorize the Treasury Department to make loans to borrowers with "unaffordable" mortgages to pay down up to 20 percent of their principal. Home Ownership Preservation (HOP) "loans".
They say "This proposal is designed to result in no cost to the government:" Well, hmm, since nothing is free... "Funding: A Treasury public debt offering of $50 billion would be sufficient to fund modifications of approximately 1 million loans that were "unsustainable at origination." <-- which would, in english, mean it was a loan that should have never been made.
That's right. The banks want Congress to create anotherprogram where the power to tax you secures restructuringloans that never should have been made to other people so thatthey won't have to eat the loss. They will get paid principle plus interest.
Public = you = no cost to the government.... oh, there it is. In other words, since you were so good at paying your house note, now you can pay someone else's too, schmuck. Reminds you of a thankless job with incompetent co-workers. Also, no chance of cost-overruns, right?
"Mortgage investors would pay the first five years of interest due to Treasury on the HOP loans." Aw, see if you had only known that when you worked those extra shifts...
Eligible Mortgages: owner-occupied residences that are (among other things) "unaffordable" – defined by front-end DTIs (Debt-to-income ratio) exceeding 40 percent at origination. <-- which would (again!) mean it was a loan that should have never been made.
http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/loans/hop/
www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=565614&in_ page_id=1770
The gipsy mother who forced her daughter of 13 to marry a 14-year-old boy yesterday dismissed British values as irrelevant to her.
Renata Gural said she was unconcerned by the outrage over the teenagers' Romany wedding ceremony at a pub in East London.
Mrs Gural, 31, who is pregnant with her sixth child, said: "I'm not bothered what anyone thinks.
___
Romany tradition: The child bride with her mother Renata Gurai
___
"I'll be the one who decides if my daughter is old enough to marry. I got married when I was 14 in such a ceremony and it hasn't done me any harm.
"Just because I live in Britain doesn't mean I've got to behave the way you lot think is right. I'll live my life the way I want and that includes the way I bring up my kids.
"I don't care what the neighbours think, or social services. It's not my problem people around here don't understand our culture and values."
The Daily Mail revealed earlier this month how her daughter, Bozena, married Bezo, the son of another gipsy family originally from Poland, in front of 150 guests at the Central pub in East Ham.
A community elder clasped the couple to his chest, bound their hands in a scarf, kissed them both on the lips and pronounced them man and wife.
____
Underage: Bezo and Bozena at their 'marriage' in East London
____
The guests then danced all night as a Polish band played raucous gipsy music.
Bozena said yesterday she was "really happy" with married life, adding: "For the first time in my life I feel like a proper grown-up.
"Before I was just a little girl and then suddenly there I was – married. That's every girl's dream isn't it?"
Bozena continues to share a cramped two-bedroom terraced house in East Ham, with 14 relatives. Her parents do not make her, or any of her siblings, go to school.
Neighbours say the family, who live on benefits and do not pay rent, are terrorising the street by playing loud music late at night, throwing rubbish into neighbours' gardens and spitting on their windows.
____
Baby-faced bride: 13-year-old Bozana prepares to be wed
____
Bezo wants his young bride Bozena to move in with him and his parents two miles away in Manor Park.
But she wants to stay at home, saying she would miss her mother if she left.
Her mother insisted the young couple had not consummated the marriage and that she will not allow her daughter to have sex until she is 18.
Their marriage is not recognised under British law, but there are fears that similar underground ceremonies could become common as the number of gypsies in Britain rises following the eastwards expansion of the EU.
Romania and Poland, which have large Romany gipsy (or Roma) populations, have taken a tough stance on such weddings by threatening prosecutions on underage sex charges.
This has led to concerns that they may move to the UK instead.
Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Nicholson, a long-time campaigner against child weddings, claimed the young couple would "be scarred for life" by the experience.
They married on April 28 after a deal stuck between their fathers soon after they arrived in Britain three years ago.
There are estimated to be nearly 100,000 Roma in Britain, although no figures are available for how many have arrived from Eastern Europe. For centuries they have encouraged their children to marry young.
Often girls are "promised" to a boy from the age of seven or eight in return for a cash dowry. It is considered essential that the girl is a virgin.
...[insert sardonic remark regarding entitlement attitude of those who would say "let me in your country, support me and as many children as I care to push out (and their progeny), and shut the *H* up about it"]
...[insert additional remark about the eventual downfall of a society that allows this to happen]
...[allow comments, whereby people will a) excuse such deplorable behaviour & b) criticize my obvious "insensitivity to the subtleties of tribal traition & lifestyle", or some such bullschidt]
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do. 
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy 
with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20."
Drinks for the ten now cost just $80. 
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men -- the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"? 
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink their beer.
The bar owner suggested it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same percentage as he was paying before, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so: 
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth (the richest) now paid $50 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man, pointing to the tenth man," but he got $9!" 
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got nine times more than me!" 
"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $9 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!" 
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" 
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. 
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They had only enough money between all of them for half of the bill! 
And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
"For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible."
