Last week several of the ‘BIG’ banks – you remember, the ones that are too big to let go bust – were fined in the region of $5.7 billion for illegal manipulation of the currency markets.
The usual suspects were included, J P Morgan, Citibank, Barclays and RBS all pleading guilty – but only after they were sure what the medicine they would be getting would be.
It’s a huge amount of money, there’s no denying that. And losing it will make the banksters hurt a bit. But only a bit.
And that’s the problem.
Yet again the United States government has failed to bring these criminals to justice after more of their deliberate fraud and theft.
In other words, they let them get away with it AGAIN!
Now, if I walk into a branch of, for example, Citibank and try to steal the money that their customers have deposited with them for safe-keeping, I would be videoed, photographed, and if I was lucky enough to get out of the premises, pursued by the police and even the FBI for as long as it took to capture me.
And I couldn’t have any complaints because that’s the way it should be. Thieves should be sought out, captured and after due process thrown into jail.
However, if I am a bankster, have good government contacts, and ply money and favors to those in government, then I am treated very differently.
I can embark on insider trading (which is essentially what the banksters were doing when they were illegally manipulating the currency markets), I can sell loans to people that clearly can’t afford them, then take their houses away or sell on their debt wrapped up in a ‘AAA’ bundle to my richer customers, and after all that steal even more of the money my customers have entrusted to me by awarding myself and my collaborators big bonuses that none of us have earned or are entitled to.
In this scenario am I pursued by the police and FBI?
Nope.
Am I thrown in jail to be the bitch of Skull-cracker Jones or Scarface Smith?
Nope.
Will I have to personally pay back the money I stole?
Nope, again.
So what will happen to me if I am a bankster?
At worst I will get a slap on the wrist and told not to do it again. Even though recent history has proved that this is no deterrent and I will do it again at the first opportunity I get.
And, of course, I don’t have to personally pay the government’s fine no matter how big it may be. Instead my company has to cough up on my behalf.
Not that the company is much bothered either because when it runs out of money it goes back to the government which hands it back at least the value of the fine and usually much, much more.
I hope there aren’t too many things that Creflo Dollar and I have in common. But the one thing that I am sure of that we do have in common is that neither of us own a $65 million private jet. (We’d probably both like to but that’s a whole different story.)
Creflo, if you don’t know already, is one of those despicable TV preachers who spend 99.9 percent of their time trying to swindle money out of gullible and stupid people who think he is really a ‘man of God’.
This pastor’s latest attempt to enrich himself at the expense of his congregation was just as blatant piece of greed and fraud as I’ve come across.
He wanted $65 million.
Nothing wrong with that, if he was going to spend it building a hospital wing, feeding the poor, housing the homeless, or some other equally good works.
But Creflo wanted the $65 million to buy himself a private jet, and a pretty swanky one come to that.
I know what you’re thinking.
I thought the same.
But it turns out that Creflo didn’t want the jet for personal gain, although he would end up owning it and using it.
Oh, dear me no, not at all.
Creflo just wanted to use the private jet to transport food to the starving peoples of the world. Oh yes, and to save the lives of Christians being persecuted in the Middle east.
Personally, if these were indeed the reasons for wanting an airplane, I’d have set my sights on something a little more modest and of the cargo, rather than the luxury passenger, variety. You can pack a heck of a lot more boxes of food into an empty cargo fuselage than you can into one crammed with plush leather reclining seats, plama TV screens, beds, drinks cabinets and all the other luxury fittings you can find in a bespoke Gulfstream private jet.
It didn’t work of course. Thankfully.
It transpired that not even the type of gullible Americans who watch this kind of TV trash fell for Creflo’s obvious display of greed and self-agrandisement. After disappointing results and adverse publicity the web page soliciting donations for the private jet disappeared – and so did Creflo.
For a while, that is.
But he came back and when he did he had the usual religious scammer’s excuses all lined up. The reason for his disappearance was because he was “talking with God” – not the real one of course, but his own personal version, the one who only told him what he wanted to hear.
And his fake god told Creflo that his scam to get himself a private jet had failed because the ‘forces of evil’ had interfered with his plans and set out to discredit him.
one of Creflo Dollar’s modest little cribs
It’s a pity they hadn’t got to work on Creflo before now. Before he was able to scam his supporters out of enough money to buy him a million dollar home in Atlanta, another $2.5 million home in Manhattan, a Rolls-Royce motor car, and just enough money to buy one private jet back in 1999.
I wish we had heard the last from people like Creflo.
Twenty questions covering the usual wide range of subjects, so hopefully there will be one or two that you find easy and one or two that you find a lot more difficult.
But remember, as always if you get stuck, you can find the answers waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down below, but please NO cheating!
Enjoy and good luck.
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Q. 1: According to a survey conducted by Citrix, what percentage of people thought that stormy weather affects cloud computing?
a) 1% b) 15% c) 51% d) 85%
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Q. 2: What city is known as ‘The Harbor City’ ?
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Q. 3: What is another name for the prairie wolf?
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Q. 4: If your boss cuts your salary by 10% but offers to let you work 10% more to make up for it, should you accept?
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Q. 5: Six men are widely accepted to be the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. What were their names? (You get a point for each correctly named and a bonus point if can correctly name all six.)
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Q. 6: A follow-up question to # 5, which one of these Founding Fathers once wrote a scientific piece called ‘Fart Proudly’ ?
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Q. 7: What percentage of the Earth’s volcanoes are underwater?
a) 10 % b) 30 % c) 50 % d) 70 % e) 90 %
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Q. 8: In Greek mythology who attempted to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax, but flew too close to the Sun and perished when the wax melted?
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Q. 9: And when we’re on the subject of flying, what area code would you use if you wanted to call the Kennedy Space Center in Florida?
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Q. 10: What do you call the three sides of a right-angled triangle? (Hint, you get zero points for answering ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’.)
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Q. 11: This one is the name of a famous Shakespeare tragedy and a multiplayer board game based on the popular game Reversi. What is it?
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Q. 12: What nationality is the famous musician Richard Clayderman and what instrument is associated with him? (A point for each correct answer.)
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Q. 13: ‘Equatorial’, ‘Gulf Stream’ and ‘Humboldt’ are names give to what?
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Q. 14: Russians consume about 6 times as much what as Americans?
a) milk b) coffee c) tea d) beer e) spirits
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Q. 15: Which paper format has the largest area, the ‘International A4’ as used for example in the UK or the ‘Letter’ format used in the United States?
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Q. 16: There are seven main weight divisions used in professional boxing, what are they? (You get a point for each one you can name correctly and three bonus points if you get all seven correct.)
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Q. 17: What is the link between something to eat, something to drink, somewhere to go and something to call your daughter?
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Q. 18: What was the name of the cat that survived the sinking of the Bismark, HMS Cossack and HMS Ark Royal?
a) Kit Kat b) Wet Willie c) Unsinkable Sam
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Q. 19: What is the largest country in South America (a) by area and (b) by size of population? (A point for each correct answer.)
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Q. 20: Who had a ‘Manic Monday’ and went on to ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ ?
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ANSWERS
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Q. 1: According to a survey conducted by Citrix, what percentage of people thought that stormy weather affects cloud computing?
a) 1% b) 15% c) 51% d) 85%
A. 1: Unbelievably the correct answer is c) 51%.
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Q. 2: What city is known as ‘The Harbor City’ ?
A. 2: Sydney, Australia.
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Q. 3: What is another name for the prairie wolf?
A. 3: Coyote.
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Q. 4: If your boss cuts your salary by 10% but offers to let you work 10% more to make up for it, should you accept?
A. 4: You should NOT accept the offer. This is a percentage question. For example, if you made $10 per hour, a 10% cut in your salary would leave you with $9 per hour. Adding 10% back would only be 10% of $9, or 90 cents so you would end up with only $9.90.
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Q. 5: Six men are widely accepted to be the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. What were their names? (You get a point for each correctly named and a bonus point if can correctly name all six.)
A. 5: The six men are widely accepted to be the Founding Fathers of the United States of America are George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and, of course, Benjamin Franklin.
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Q. 6: A follow-up question to # 5, which one of these Founding Fathers once wrote a scientific piece called ‘Fart Proudly’ ?
A. 6: Benjamin Franklin wrote a scientific piece called Fart Proudly. It was all about farts.
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Q. 7: What percentage of the Earth’s volcanoes are underwater?
a) 10 % b) 30 % c) 50 % d) 70 % e) 90 %
A. 7: The correct answer is e) 90% of all volcanoes are underwater.
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Q. 8: In Greek mythology who attempted to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax, but flew too close to the Sun and perished when the wax melted?
A. 8: Icarus.
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Q. 9: And when we’re on the subject of flying, what area code would you use if you wanted to call the Kennedy Space Center in Florida?
A. 9: The telephone area code for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is ‘321’ which imitates the countdown before liftoff. It was assigned to the area, instead of suburban Chicago in November 1999 after a successful petition led by local resident Robert Osband. Try it out, call the Kennedy Space Center on (321) 867-5000.
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Q. 10: What do you call the three sides of a right-angled triangle? (Hint, you get zero points for answering ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’.)
A. 10: They are called ‘opposite’, ‘adjacent’ and ‘hypotenuse’.
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Q. 11: This one is the name of a famous Shakespeare tragedy and a multiplayer board game based on the popular game Reversi. What is it?
A. 11: Othello.
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Q. 12: What nationality is the famous musician Richard Clayderman and what instrument is associated with him? (A point for each correct answer.)
A. 12: Richard Clayderman is French and he is a pianist.
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Q. 13: ‘Equatorial’, ‘Gulf Stream’ and ‘Humboldt’ are names give to what?
A. 13: Ocean currents.
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Q. 14: Russians consume about 6 times as much what as Americans?
a) milk b) coffee c) tea d) beer e) spirits
A. 14: The correct answer is c) tea, Russians also consume about 6 times as much tea as Americans.
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Q. 15: Which paper format has the largest area, the ‘International A4’ as used for example in the UK or the ‘Letter’ format used in the United States?
A. 15: A4 has the largest area. (A4 is 210 mm (8.25”) wide and 297 mm (11.75”) long or 62,370 m2, and US Letter is 216 mm (8.5”) wide by 279 mm (11”) long or 60,264 m2.)
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Q. 16: There are seven main weight divisions used in professional boxing, what are they? (You get a point for each one you can name correctly and three bonus points if you get all seven correct.)
A. 16: Although modern additions have been added, the seven main weight divisions used in professional boxing are ‘Flyweight’, ‘Bantamweight’, ‘Featherweight’, ‘Lightweight’, ‘Welterweight’, ‘Middleweight’ and ‘Heavyweight’.
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Q. 17: What is the link between something to eat, something to drink, somewhere to go and something to call your daughter?
A. 17: Margarita.
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Q. 18: What was the name of the cat that survived the sinking of the Bismark, HMS Cossack and HMS Ark Royal?
a) Kit Kat b) Wet Willie c) Unsinkable Sam
A. 18: The correct answer is c) Unsinkable Sam.
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Q. 19: What is the largest country in South America (a) by area and (b) by size of population? (A point for each correct answer.)
A. 19: The correct answers are (a) Brazil with an area of 8,514,877 Km2, and (b) Brazil with a population of more than 195.5 million.
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Q. 20: Who had a ‘Manic Monday’ and went on to ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ ?
The act of handing more powers to its intelligence agencies.
Yes, the Canadian government has passed a controversial anti-terrorism Bill, 183 votes to 93, to extend the powers of the country’s spy agencies.
It’s all in the interests of national security of course. The excuse or cover being used is the recent – and first ever – terrorist attack on Canadian soil last October, in which a gunman attacked the country’s parliament, shot a soldier on ceremonial guard duty and was subsequently killed himself.
The new legislation gives Canada’s spooks the ability to make preventative arrests. In other words, like America’s controversial ‘extraordinary rendition’, the Canadian Intelligence Service will be able to take “measures to reduce threats to the security of Canada, including measures that are authorized by the Federal Court”. And they can do it inside Canada as well as in other countries.
All well and good.
But tacked on to the legislation is the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, which hands government agencies “increased information disclosure powers”, which is a nice way of saying they can snoop on almost anyone and everyone as and when they want to.
They are going to keep Canadians safe by listening to their phone calls and reading their emails, just like they do in America.
Doesn’t it give you a nice warm feeling of security?
Nope, me neither! .
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Remember the big furor a while ago when Edward Snowden revealed that American intelligence agencies had been spying on their friends and allies as well as their enemies? I even commented on it myself here and there.
One of the politicians most outraged by the unwanted and unnecessary snooping was German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Spying among friends, that’s not all right at all,” she said very publicly in 2013. And in July last year in an unprecedented move she expelled, from Germany the CIA station chief, who in plain language is the top American spy in the country.
The German media jumped all over it too, with heavy moralizing tones and whipping up the German public’s natural reaction against what America had been caught doing.
Hmmmm.
That was good stuff.
At least it would have been, but for more recent revelations that Germany’s own spy agency, the BND, have for years been collaborating with America’s National Security Agency (NSA) in spying on Germany’s friends in Paris and Brussels.
What???
Yes, you read it correctly.
While Merkel was whining on about privacy this, and privacy that, her spooks were operating hand in glove with the Americans to spy on supposed friends. And Merkel knew it. As Chancellor she is in charge of overseeing what the BND is up to.
And specifically what the NSA was up to was using the electronic eavesdropping facilities of the BND in Bad Aibling, a town in Bavaria, by giving the Germans phone numbers, search terms or internet addresses they wanted to monitor. The scale of the snooping was huge. In 2013 alone, the Americans snooped in on 690,000 phone numbers and 7.8m search terms.
As investigations and revelations continue we will no doubt hear phrases like “national security’ and ‘terrorist threats’ being cited as the reasons for all this snooping being necessary. That would be fine if it were true. But it isn’t.
The thing that negates all the good elements that those who have been caught red-handed and red-faced will try to emphasize now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag are revelations that the American snoops were also targeting certain commercial companies which, if true is industrial espionage and nothing to do with terrorism.
Airbus, the European aircraft maker and chief rival to America’s Boeing, has already filed a criminal suit with German prosecutors and demanded clarification from the German government.
Of course that doesn’t mean they’ll get it. Since these revelations a lot of ass-covering has started. Several investigations are apparently underway, investigations that will find whatever the government wants them to find. In other words they will only reveal what they think they have to and little else.
So to answer the question posed in the title of today’s post, ‘Heuchler’ is apparently the German word for hypocrite. So ‘Heuchlers’ they are!
Yes, movies, music and murder all appear in today’s quiz.
Lots of other subjects too.
And as usual, if you get stuck, you can find the answers waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down below, but please NO cheating!
Enjoy and good luck.
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Q. 1: Who was assassinated at the theater by John Wilkes Booth?
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Q. 2: What is the most abundant substance found in the plant kingdom?
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Q. 3: What well known city in the Far East is known as ‘The Lion City’ ?
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Q. 4: Who discovered the law that the volume of a given mass of gas at a constant temperature is inversely proportional to its pressure?
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Q. 5: What type of creature is a Pacific sea wasp?
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Q. 6: Which of Napoleon’s victories had a chicken dish named after it?
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Q. 7: In which country is the port of Fray Bentos?
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Q. 8: What was the name of the English galleon best known for her circumnavigation of the globe between 1577 and 1580, captained by Sir Francis Drake?
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Q. 9: English novelist John Meade Falkner, not to be confused with the famous American author John Faulkner, published three novels. ‘The Nebuly Coat’ was one of them, you get a point for each of the other two you can name correctly and two bonus points if you get both of them correct.
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Q. 10: What are the only two numbers on a dartboard to lie between two odd ones?
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Q. 11: What wind is a warm southerly coming from the Sahara Desert over the Mediterranean?
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Q. 12: What is the largest flat fish species?
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Q. 13: Which Washington D.C. born oscar-winning actress wrote ‘A Lotus Grows in the Mud’ ?
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Q. 14: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played 20 seasons in which sport?
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Q. 15: What item of clothing was named after its Scottish inventor?
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Q. 16: On which continent would you find the world’s most ancient forest?
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Q. 17: Bray Studios, near Windsor in Berkshire, England was home to which famous brand of horror films?
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Q. 18: Which kind of flower bulbs were once exchanged as a form of currency?
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Q. 19: Name the three primary colors.
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Q. 20: What was the name of the song performed by Eton John, a revised version of which became a mega-hit after being sung live by Elton at Princess Diana’s funeral? A bonus point if you can also correctly name the sub-title given to the latter version.
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ANSWERS
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Q. 1: Who was assassinated at the theater by John Wilkes Booth?
A. 1: Abraham Lincoln.
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Q. 2: What is the most abundant substance found in the plant kingdom?
A. 2: Cellulose.
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Q. 3: What well known city in the Far East is known as ‘The Lion City’ ?
A. 3: Singapore.
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Q. 4: Who discovered the law that the volume of a given mass of gas at a constant temperature is inversely proportional to its pressure?
A. 4: Robert Boyle.
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Q. 5: What type of creature is a Pacific sea wasp?
A. 5: It is a Jellyfish.
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Q. 6: Which of Napoleon’s victories had a chicken dish named after it?
A. 6: Marengo.
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Q. 7: In which country is the port of Fray Bentos?
A. 7: In the South American country Uruguay.
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Q. 8: What was the name of the English galleon best known for her circumnavigation of the globe between 1577 and 1580, captained by Sir Francis Drake?
A. 8: It was the Golden Hind or Golden Hinde.
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Q. 9: English novelist John Meade Falkner, not to be confused with the famous American author John Faulkner, published three novels. ‘The Nebuly Coat’ was one of them, you get a point for each of the other two you can name correctly and two bonus points if you get both of them correct.
A. 9: They are ‘The Lost Stradivarius’ and ‘Moonfleet’.
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Q. 10: What are the only two numbers on a dartboard to lie between two odd ones?
A. 10: 3 and 19 (there is a run of four odd numbers around the bottom – 17,3,19,7, nowhere else is there a run of more than 2 consecutive odd or even numbers).
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Q. 11: What wind is a warm southerly coming from the Sahara Desert over the Mediterranean?
A. 11: Sirocco.
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Q. 12: What is the largest flat fish species?
A. 12: Halibut.
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Q. 13: Which Washington D.C. born oscar-winning actress wrote ‘A Lotus Grows in the Mud’ ?
A. 13: Goldie Hawn.
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Q. 14: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played 20 seasons in which sport?
A. 14: Basketball.
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Q. 15: What item of clothing was named after its Scottish inventor?
A. 15: A mackintosh.
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Q. 16: On which continent would you find the world’s most ancient forest?
A. 16: In Australia specifically Daintree Forest, north of Cairns.
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Q. 17: Bray Studios, near Windsor in Berkshire, England was home to which famous brand of horror films?
A. 17: Hammer Horror.
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Q. 18: Which kind of flower bulbs were once exchanged as a form of currency?
A. 18: Tulips.
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Q. 19: Name the three primary colors.
A. 19: Red, yellow and blue.
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Q. 20: What was the name of the song performed by Eton John, a revised version of which became a mega-hit after being sung live by Elton at Princess Diana’s funeral? A bonus point if you can also correctly name the sub-title given to the latter version.
A. 20: It was ‘Candle in the wind’. For your bonus point the sub-title for the revised version was ‘Goodbye England’s Rose’.
fasab 