Somewhere, a new spam-scam factory is pumping out new schemes at the rate of one every couple of days.
They introduce via a domain name that has nothing to do with whatever they are using as the hook for the scam, but they do have certain things in common which enable us to identify them as sourced by the same spam-scam crew. Today's is from philstudio.net under the banner "Portfolio Direct" and is headed "Free guide to direct lending."
The abject failure of the United Nations to come to the defence of the people of Palestine is a disgrace and a failure of the organisation which was formed in significant part, to prevent wars. In relation to Palestine, it can be said to be preventing wars only because wars take place between nation states and the UN refuses to acknowledge Palestine as a nation state. This vacuum has allowed the nation state of Israel to expand outside its borders, to regard those who live in Palestine as stateless and therefore, in effect, outlaws and has resulted in decades of systematic abuse, land grabs and genocide.
This weekend we have seen the United Nations turn its back as organised forces murdered Palestinians in that small proportion of Palestine as mapped 100 years ago which Israel allows Palestinians to occupy. This has to stop: the United Nations must remove the veto that allows Israel and the USA, in particular, to consistently prevent action to protect the land and people of Palestine.
For those that can't be bothered to keep up with US President Trump's online twittering, there are various ways of getting just the gist of what he's up to. One of the most fun is to scan the last 11 or so months of headlines from The Economist. Here are the highlights of his Washington shenanigans. Foreign trade and foreign policy are, often, from another planet and we don't want to go there. Of course, it also allows us to relish the Economist's punny headlines and to ask a basic question: why is someone who is so in favour of the USA's pro-gun lobby so determined to shoot himself in the foot?
The days of Easy Rider are numbered. Around the world, gangs of criminals on motorbikes (colloquially but (usually) legally incorrectly called Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs) have, quite simply, gone too far and as they have become the face of organised crime, usually in large, sparsely populated countries, they are being targeted. While the Hell's Angels have been held up as a model, the gangs are rarely truly members. But while, these days, many Hells Angels groups are filled with ageing lawyers, bankers and wannabe bad boys, the current crop have taken over the worst traits - and business practices, investing in businesses, property and with a raft of professional advisers on retainer. One regulator has had enough and put metaphorical chains on the doors of a law firm.
As low-cost mortgage schemes and Pump and Dump scams return to the internet, there's more proof that frauds are cyclical. Today sees the gold spam we've seen in a while. And it even offers a "standby letter of credit."
Two men have been sentenced to long jail terms in Australia for tax evasion and money laundering. They conspired to create an elaborate network of companies and false identities and ran a wide range of document frauds to book false losses in business activities, producing some AUD60 million in defrauded taxes. They spent the money on palatial homes, cars and boats and other luxury items and lifestyle expenditure.
Phillip Eric de Figueiredo was a principal in the firm of Strachans based in Jersey and Switzerland. Along with Philip Egglishaw, de Figueiredo arranged for clients in Australia to dishonestly reduce the tax payable to the ATO by way of a number of arrangements. De Figueiredo was extradited from Jersey and eventually pleaded guilty to 2 conspiracies involving Australian clients.
It's easy to criticise the British Empire - it did some very bad things. However, it also did something very good things: it is the only colonial power in recent times to have left behind a solid template for good government. What countries have done with it in the, often, half-a-century or more since is their own fault. At the heart of the system is full and fair democracy, universal suffrage, the Rule of Law and, most important for good governance, the separation of powers between Church and State and between Parliament, the Executive and the Judiciary. A most distressing case before the English High Court two weeks ago for which the approved judgment was published yesterday proves why that model is so valuable.
In recent weeks, largely because members of the media are concerned so the whole industry is in a bit of a tizz, there has been much made of the BBC's policy of requiring some people working there to work on contract, where the contract is between the BBC and a company owned and controlled by the contractor. There are perfectly good reasons why employers want such an arrangement but Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs have taken the view that this is a scheme designed to reduce personal income tax, especially where the contractor operated through an offshore company (often not in his or her own name). Now the whole situation has become...
The fine might seem small at only AUD43,200 but insurance is all about trust and when car insurer RAA Insurance was investigated by ASIC, it was found to have misled customers in its advertising. Oddly, the case can be illustrated by reference to cricket and the Australian Grand Prix, both within the past few days.
We dislike Taboola's low-grade, spammy, click-bait rubbish that populates so many websites. We specifically use an ad-blocker code to make sure it is not displayed on any of our machines (||taboola.com). We really should get round to blocking it at router level. At some point, we've made that clear. But Taboola is so utterly stupid that it thinks spamming us with a suggestion we actually carry the very material we don't ever want to see is a good idea. The fun bit is at the very start of their spam, reproduced here, complete with addresses, so spam-harvesters can have a great time with them.
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