Do You Really Want A Liar In The White House?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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I ended a post last week that ended with the line, “If you want a liar in the White House there’s always Hillary.”

Some people may have thought it a little harsh, particularly those who were considering voting for her, but harsh or not it is a fact.

Her wayward husband Bill was a liar and he made President and impeachment. Now she is trying to carry on the tradition.

Hillary simply cannot tell the truth.

Everyone knows it.

And everyone includes the representatives from other countries that she would have to interact with, if – God help us – the American people are stupid enough to make her President.

Unfortunately, such is the attention span of people nowadays they only seem to remember the last thing they see and hear. If something happened in the past it is as if it never occurred at all.

With a position as important as the US Presidency at stake it is surely necessary to examine the candidates more closely than that.

Hillary Clinton’s lies are many and they cover almost every aspect of her life. She is an opportunist, always willing to try to enhance her position by lying. Nothing is sacred.

And it isn’t a recent occurrence. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been a liar for her entire political life, probably longer than that.

Take a look for yourselves.

Going waaaaay back to 1974, when Hillary Clinton was 27, she worked for the House Judiciary Committee which at that time was investigating Richard Nixon and Watergate.

Strictly against House rules, she met with Teddy Kennedy’s chief political strategist and then manipulated the system, wrote a “fraudulent legal brief” and “confiscated public documents”.

They had no choice but fire Hillary Rodham. When asked why she was fired, Jerry Zeifman, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate investigation, said in an interview, “Because she was a liar. She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer, she conspired to violate the Constitution, the Rules of the House, the Rules of the Committee, and the rules of confidentiality.”

Zeifman later wrote in a 2006 book titled ‘Hillary’s Pursuit of Power’, that “Hillary Clinton is ethically unfit to be either a senator or president.”

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When she made it to the White House as First Lady, she was still a stranger to the truth. Trying to distance herself from another gaff, Hillary said she didn’t know that her staff would fire the travel office staff after she told them to do so.

Hillary lied.

Staff do what you tell them to do. That’s why they work for you and not you for them. The memorandum relating to the firings went  “missing” for two years.

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The “missing” lie was a trait that was to continue. Documents regarding Hillary’s work at the Rose Law firm in Arkansas, specifically regarding a savings and loan company run by the Clintons’ business partner in the Whitewater land venture also went “missing” for two years.

Eventually they miraculously reappeared when a White House aide found them, in the White House, in a storage area on the third-floor, which is the private residence of the President and First Lady.

Hillary said that she had no idea the documents were there, which would have been fine except for the fact that the FBI found Hillary’s fingerprints on the documents. Hillary is still the only First Lady in American history to be fingerprinted by the FBI.

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Lying to take advantage of national tragedies is also a depth to which Hillary Clinton will gladly stoop.

For example, when everyone else was in shock and sympathizing with the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack tragedy, Hillary tried to take some of the attention for herself. She said her daughter Chelsea was jogging around the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 at the time of the airplanes flew into the twin towers.

Hillary lied.

Chelsea was in bed watching it on TV.

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To try to aggrandize herself on another occasion, Hillary said she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Mount Everest.

Hillary lied.

Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Mt. Everest five years AFTER Hillary Rodham was born. Nobody knew who he was and therefore wouldn’t have named their children after him.

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When she was on a visit to Bosnia, Hillary said she came under sniper fire as she disembarked at the airport.

Hillary lied.

Video taken at the time shows a girl presented her with flowers and she and Chelsea can be seen on video walking across the Bosnian tarmac smiling and greeting well-wishers. Not a sniper’s bullet in sight. Here’s a nice video report to prove it.

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As regards finances, Hillary said she learned in The Wall Street Journal how to make a killing in the futures market.

Hillary lied.

The Wall Street Journal didn’t even cover the market back then.

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Hillary said she didn’t know about the pardons given to members of the violent Puerto Rico nationalist group FALN or that her brothers were being paid to get pardons that her husband Bill Clinton granted.

Hillary lied.

Her husband and her brothers knew and she didn’t? A likely story! With an ill-advised stroke of a pen President Clinton made a mockery of the pledge to “wage an all-out war against terrorism” by pardoning 14 FALN terrorists.

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Still on the subject of pardons, Hillary also said she had nothing to do with the New Square Hasidic pardons that reduced the prison terms of four New York Hasidic Jews convicted of defrauding tens of millions of dollars from the government.

Hillary lied.

In fact, of all the pardons that President Clinton granted as he was leaving the White House, this one has Hillary written all over it. She attended a meeting at the White House about the pardons and got repaid in votes, 1,400 to 12.

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To try to excuse her greed, Hillary said taking the White House gifts was a “clerical error”.

Hillary lied.

The “error”, clerical or otherwise, was getting caught and she came up with the best excuse she could think of at the time.

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To try to make herself look more statesmanlike Hillary said she negotiated for the release of refugees in Macedonia.

Hillary lied.

They were released the day before she even got there.

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In a pathetic attempt to get sympathy where none was deserved, Hillary said her family was broke when they left the White House.

Hillary lied.

And they only made a paltry $12 million the year after Bill Clinton’s Presidency.

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Never noted for her humility, Hillary said she was “instrumental” in the Northern Ireland peace process.

Hillary lied.

She and President Bill visited Northern Ireland and did some PR work for the deal that ushered terrorists into government in Belfast, but those actually at the negotiating table say Hillary was nowhere to be seen.

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Hillary said the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other officials was a “spontaneous protest” gone wrong.

Hillary lied.

Based on State Department documents we know that, not only was Benghazi a terrorist attack, but that Hillary was well aware of that fact and deliberately misled the public.

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Then there is the private email server she set up the day before her nomination as Secretary of State, and used for her entire tenure in that office. Hillary said the whole thing was innocent and that access would be given to scrutinize her emails.

Hillary lied.

The whole procedure was far from innocent. For one thing it is in direct violation of a 2009 Federal Law.  Hillary set up her private email server and used it when she was Secretary of State so that there would be no official government records of those emails. She could pick and choose what to release and what to delete. Her aides also used private email addresses. Actualy both the Clintons loved email for that very reason, because it was so much easier to hide stuff, when she was asked to turn over 1.8 million emails to Judicial Watch, Congress, and federal investigators.

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What do you call someone with a record like that except a liar?

How are we supposed to believe that all of a sudden she has had a “road to the White House” conversion and become honest and straightforward, rather than a schemer and a liar?

I’m reminded of that old joke,

Question: “How can you tell when a politician is lying?”

Answer: “When his/her lips are moving.”

It needs to be updated for Hillary.

She can lie even when her lips aren’t moving, or get emails or other people to do it for her.

So do you want a liar in the White House?

Do you???

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There’s No Fact-Checker Like A Fact-Checker Checker.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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I’m a great man for facts.

Even a cursory glance around my blog will confirm that. Every week I try to post some.

Facts are good things. Many other people seem to like them too.

Except for one particular group.

Liberals.

Facts always seem to get in the way of whatever it is they are trying to force us to accept.

Enter Donald Trump into the story.

The Donald has caused a lot of controversy lately with his illegal immigrant pronouncements. Cowards like the management of Macy’s, NBC, Univision etc., have made knee-jerk decisions and run from the controversy without taking any time whatsoever to check the facts.

It’s the way Americans have been conditioned to behave when someone says something controversial about a minority or a minority view point.

The hardly impartial Washington Post has been in the forefront of the media critics and, of course, we have also had media mogul Rupert Murdock chirping in against a political candidate who is too rich to fit into his pocket.

But what did Trump actually say?

And do the facts support him or not?

Unlike Macy’s and the rest, let’s take a little time to have a look.

Trump said that some undocumented immigrants commit crimes in the U.S. and in fact they do. He did NOT say ALL Mexicans and he did NOT include Hispanic U.S. citizens, which is what his detractors are trying to infer. In fact from the reports I have read I do not think he quantified it at all.

Trump did, however, strongly ‘imply’ that undocumented immigrants are more criminal than the average U.S. citizen.

The Washington Post “fact checked” this and found it to be ‘false’. The problem for the Washington Post’s fact-checkers is that some of the data shows otherwise.

For example, a 2011 Government Accountability Office report (GAO-11-187, Criminal Alien Statistics, March 2011, to be precise) opens with the sentence,

“The number of criminal aliens in federal prisons in fiscal year 2010 was about 55,000, and the number of SCAAP criminal alien incarcerations in state prison systems and local jails was about 296,000 in fiscal year 2009 (the most recent data available), and the majority were from Mexico.”

‘SCAAP’, by the way, is the ‘State Criminal Alien Assistance Program’ which means aliens illegally in the United States at the time of their incarceration.

As for federal prisoners, the GAO states, “In fiscal year 2005, the criminal alien population in federal prisons was around 27 percent of the total inmate population, and from fiscal years 2006 through 2010 remained consistently around 25 percent.”

The Government Accountability Office figures also show that in 2009 the total alien – i.e., non-U.S.-citizen – population in the United Sates was about 25.3 million, which included about 10.8 million aliens without lawful immigration status – illegal aliens in other words.

The total population of the U.S. at that time was approximately 306.8 million. Non-citizens comprised 8.25% of the population and illegal aliens about 3.52%.

If you compare the percentage of illegal aliens in the population as a whole (the 3.52% mentioned above) with the percentages of illegal aliens in the prison population, namely 25% in 2009 and almost 39% in 2013, it is clear that their crimes are well in excess of their proportion of the population.

More numbers.

The FBI’s records show that there were 67,642 murders in the U.S. from 2005 through 2008, and 115,717 from 2003 through 2009.

The GAO estimates “criminal aliens” were arrested, convicted and incarcerated for 25,064 homicides. That means they committed 22% to 37% of all murders in the U.S., while being only 3.52% to 8.25% of the population.

Therefore the facts confirm that criminal and illegal aliens commit murder at much higher rates than all inhabitants of the U.S. – at least 3 to 10 times higher.

Although I have not had the time to crunch the numbers further, what you have just read could be a very conservative total because the FBI doesn’t get itself involved in all homicides, most of them are handled at state and local level.

Based on the erroneous research of their misnamed “fact-checkers”, the Washington Post alleged that Trump’s statements were only underscoring  “a common public perception that crime is correlated with immigration, especially illegal immigration”.

It went even further, stating that Trump’s repeated statements about immigrants and crime were a “misperception” and that there was “no solid data support it”.

The Washington Post fact-checkers obviously did not take the time to check the facts in the GAO reports, which as we have seen actually do support the perception trump is vocalizing.

Apparently there is no fact-checker like a fact-checker checker.

Where are Ben Bradlee, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein when you need them?

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The ‘F’ Word And More – It’s Fasab Fact Day!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Don’t be offended by the title.

An ‘F’ word here or there never hurt anyone.

So get stuck into the facts (that’s an ‘F’ word too!)

Enjoy.

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In 2011 approximately one third

of divorce filings in the US

contained the ‘F’ word,

yes, that’s the one

“facebook”.

(See, it wasn’t nearly

as bad as you thought.)

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HOT fact:

The temperature of the Earth’s core is

5500 degrees celsius (9900 degrees fahrenheit).

That is the same temperature as the surface of the sun.

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Getting a silver medal in the Olympics

will make you feel worse than getting a bronze

(because you just missed the gold)

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There is actually a beer brewed

from bananas in some countries

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Out of 44 Presidents of the United States,

32 have served in the military.

15 Presidents served in the Army/Army Reserve,

9 served in state militias,

6 served in the Navy/Naval Reserve

and 2 served in the Continental Army.

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Croatian Josip Belušic invented the speedometer.

(How about that for a fast fact?)

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Answering the call of nature is something

Europeans usually associate with the utmost privacy,

which is why American toilets,

with huge bottom and side gaps,

seem so weird to some foreigners.

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The first webcam was actually created

to monitor a coffee pot at

the University of Cambridge.

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Russian spies used to use hollow coins

to pass messages to each other in the US

and one of these coins made it into circulation.

One day a paperboy dropped the coin

and it split open revealing its coded contents.

The code baffled the FBI and CIA

until a Russian spy defected to the US

and interpreted the note.

It was a welcome message from Moscow

…and it was intended for him.

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In Australia there is a river

called the ‘Never Never River’.

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The toaster in your kitchen

contains a more powerful computer

than the one used by NASA

to send astronauts to the moon.

It only had 64Kbyte of memory

and operated at 0.043MHz.

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After the release of the Top Gun movie in 1986,

the US Navy stated that the number of

young men who wanted to become Naval Aviators

went up by 500 percent.

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They Got Away With It AGAIN!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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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.

Think this system is fair?

Neither do I.

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Would You Buy An Expensive Lock If Someone Else Had The Key?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Apple and Google recently enabled full-device encryption by default on their mobile operating systems – and big brother doesn’t like it – not one bit. As always he talks about things like ‘National Security’, ‘terrorist threats’, etc., and that there will be total chaos in the streets if ordinary citizens are allowed their right to privacy.

Some of the stuff that has hit the media has been ridiculous and would be laughable except these idiots are actually intent on total control.

For example, the head of the FBI has issued dire warnings of children dying if ordinary people are allowed their privacy via encryption programs. The secretary of Homeland Security used the deaths of the 168 people killed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing as ‘proof’ that, while privacy was important, encryption should not be allowed to stymie US law enforcement.

Big Brother wants to stick his nose into EVERYTHING. Anything that makes that harder to do frustrates the hell out of him.

 

So he continues with the stupid excuse that the necessity to snoop on law abiding people is because criminals and terrorists might use encryption tools as well.

It’s a bit like saying that no one should be allowed to drive a car because someone, somewhere, sometime, might get drunk and cause a fatal accident.

Then there’s the EnnEssEhh director who wants mandatory “front doors” to be built into all cryptographic technology used in the U.S., so that you can’t have secrets it can’t spy on. His idea is for all encrypted software and hardware used in the U.S. to have one encryption key for the user (you) and another that would be made available to the government bureaucrat spooks any time they wanted it.

This is complete nonsense. And they know it. But still they persist.

They have already got the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which removed the right of a purchaser to use their goods as they see fit. This legislation means that digital products continue to be the property of the seller – not (you) the buyer who paid for them. And it makes it illegal for buyers of digital goods to circumvent any features that allow snooping.

Going back to my car analogy, that is like a car dealer selling you a car on the condition that you never open the hood to see how it works, or perform your own modifications.

In practical terms this means that if you buy a new phone or computer, the manufacturer can have a spy device pre-installed in its hard components or its software and you would be forbidden by law from finding out about it or fixing it.

If Big Brother thinks he can enforce stupidity like this then he is even crazier than I think he is – and I think he is completely crazy already!

Big Brother can legislate all he wants, but we all know that the only people who will abide by these new laws will be the law abiding people. The criminals and terrorists will find ways round it, through it, over it, or under it.

It’s the same flawed logic as in the continued cry from liberals to take legally registered guns away from law abiding people so that only the criminals are armed.

 

Then there is, not the probability – but the FACT – that if a government spook friendly encryption system was created, it would immediately be attacked by hackers – including hackers employed by foreign governments, some of them friends of the terrorists that the legislation is supposed to be there to defeat.

And what about the practical commercial aspect to it all? When you think about it, who in their right mind is going to pay good money for an encryptiuon system that they know can be broken?

Would you buy an expensive lock if someone else had the key?

I think not.

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Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today Number Eleven 11

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The number for today’s Friday Factoid is eleven. If this is your lucky number, date of birth or if you are just interested in random facts, now is your chance to find out some things you probably didn’t know about the number eleven.

Enjoy!

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The Number Eleven 11

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In religion

• The word “apple” is cited 11 times in the Bible, all in the Old Testament.
• Moses was instructed to make curtains of goats’ hair to be a covering upon the tabernacle: “eleven curtains shalt thou make.” ( Exodus 26.7)
• 11 apostles remained with Jesus after the treason and suicide of Apostle Judas:
• After Judas Iscariot was disgraced, the remaining apostles of Jesus were sometimes described as “the Eleven”; this occurred even after Matthias was added to bring the number to 12, as in Acts 2:14.
• Jesus’ parable of the vineyard laborers: And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and says unto them, Why stand you here all the day idle? (Matthew 20.6)
• 11th Book of Enoch describes the Messianic Kingdom. 
• 11th Station of the Cross: Crucifixion of Jesus (14 Stations of the Cross, Via Dolorosa)
• 11 is a spiritually significant number in Thelema.

 

 

In mathematics

• If a number is divisible by 11, reversing its digits will result in another multiple of 11.
• As long as no two adjacent digits of a number added together exceed 9, then multiplying the number by 11, reversing the digits of the product, and dividing that new number by 11, will yield a number that is the reverse of the original number. (For example: 142,312 x 11 = 1,565,432. 2,345,651 / 11 = 213,241.)
• An 11-sided polygon is called a hendecagon or undecagon.

 

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In computing

• In Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Konqueror for KDE, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer for Windows, the function key F11 key toggles full screen viewing mode. In Mac OS X, F11 hides all open windows.
• The windowing system for Unix computers is known as X11.
• Computers of the PDP-11 series from Digital Equipment Corporation were informally referred to as “elevens”.

 

cpu room with DEC PDP-11

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In science

• 11 is the atomic number of sodium.
• 11 is the Atomic Weight of Boron, a black and semi-metallic element, chemically closer to silicon than to aluminium.
• In modern string theory physics, 11 dimensions are proposed to exist in the universe.

 

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In space

• Apollo 11 was the first manned spacecraft to land on the Moon.

• The approximate periodicity of a sunspot cycle is 11 years.
• Messier object M11, a magnitude 7.0 open cluster in the constellation Scutum, also known as the Wild Duck Cluster.

Messier object M11 – Wild Duck Cluster

• The New General Catalogue object NGC 11, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Andromeda
• The 11th moon of Jupiter is Himalia.

 

Himalia, the 11th Moon of Jupiter

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In politics

• 11th State to enter the Union is New York (July 26, 1788)
• The 11th President of the United States is James Polk (1795-1849) who served (1845-1849).

James Polk 11th President of the United States of America

• Polk was on the 11¢ stamp issued on September 8, 1938 in the Presidential Series.
• 11¢ stamps of the United States have also featured Presidents, Benjamin Franklin (issued Aug. 9, 1915) and Rutherford B. Hayes (issued Oct. 4, 1922)

 

11 cent stamps, Franklin, Polk, Hayes

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In Canada

• The stylized maple leaf on the Flag of Canada has 11 points.

• The Canadian one-dollar coin is a hendecagon, an 11-sided polygon.

Canadian one-dollar coin

• Clocks depicted on Canadian currency, for example the Canadian fifty-dollar bill, show 11:00.

Canadian fifty-dollar bill showing clock

• Eleven denominations of Canadian currency are produced in large quantities.
• Due to Canada’s federal nature, eleven legally distinct Crowns effectively exist in the country, with the Monarch being represented separately in each province, as well as at the federal level.

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In sport

• There are 11 players on a soccer team on the field at a time as well as in a cricket team.
• Also in soccer, a penalty kick is referred to as “Elfmeter” because the penalty spot is approximately 11m (precisely 12 yards) from the goal line.
• Historically, in the Pyramid formation that position names are taken from, a left wing-forward in football wears number 11. In the modern game, especially using the 4-4-2 formation, it is worn by a left-sided midfielder. Less commonly a striker will wear the shirt.
• There are 11 players in a field hockey team. The player wearing 11 will usually play on the left-hand side, as in soccer.
• An American football team also has 11 players on the field at one time during play. 11 is also worn by quarterbacks, kickers, punter and wide receivers in American football’s NFL.
• In rugby union, the starting left wing wears the 11 shirt.
• In cricket, the 11th batsman is usually the weakest batsman, at the end of the tail. He is primarily in the team for his bowling abilities.
• The jersey number 11 has been retired by several North American sports teams in honor of past playing greats or other key figures:
• In Major League Baseball: the Chicago White Sox, for Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio ( 2010 and 2011, Aparicio allowed fellow Venezuelan Omar Vizquel to wear the number); the Cincinnati Reds, for Hall of Famer Barry Larkin; the Detroit Tigers, for Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson; the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, for Jim Fregosi (who played for the team in its former incarnations as the Los Angeles Angels and California Angels, and also managed the California Angels); the Pittsburgh Pirates, for Hall of Famer Paul Waner; the San Francisco Giants, for Hall of Famer Carl Hubbell (honoring the number’s retirement when the team was known as the New York Giants); the Seattle Mariners have yet to retire any numbers, but have not issued #11 since the retirement of Edgar Martínez at the end of the 2004 season.

Baseball Hall of Fame Cincinnati Reds

• In the NBA: the Detroit Pistons, for Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas; the Sacramento Kings, for Hall of Famer Bob Davies (honoring the number’s retirement when the team was known as the Rochester Royals); the Washington Wizards, for Hall of Famer Elvin Hayes (who played for the team in its past incarnations as the Baltimore, Capital, and Washington Bullets);

Elvin Hayes

• In the NFL: the New York Giants, for Phil Simms.
• In the NHL: the Buffalo Sabres, for Hall of Famer Gilbert Perreault; the Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers, for Hall of Famer Mark Messier; the St. Louis Blues, for Brian Sutter; the Washington Capitals, for Hall of Famer Mike Gartner.

 

Oilers and New York Rangers, for Hall of Famer Mark Messier

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In militaria

• World War I ended with an Armistice on November 11, 1918, which went into effect at 11:00 am, the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of the year. Armistice Day is still observed on November 11 of each year, although it is now called Veterans Day in the United States and Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth of Nations and parts of Europe.

• 11 is the number of guns in a gun salute to U.S. Army, Air Force and Marine Corps Brigadier Generals, and to Navy and Coast Guard Rear Admirals Lower Half.
• 11 is the number of General Orders for Sentries in the Marine Corps and United States Navy.

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• USN F11F Tiger
• The Grumman F11F/F-11 Tiger was a single-seat carrier-based United States Navy fighter aircraft in operation during the 1950s and 1960s. Originally designated the F11F Tiger in April 1955 under the pre-1962 Navy designation system, it was redesignated as F-11 Tiger under the 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system.
• The F11F/F-11 was used by the Blue Angels flight team from 1957 to 1969. Grumman Aircraft Corporation made about 200 Tigers, with last delivered 23 January 1

The Grumman F11F/F-11 Tiger

 

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• J-11 Chinese Light Fighter Aircraft
• The J-11 designation was originally applied in the design Shenyang Aircraft Factory in response to a 1968 requirement for a replacement PLAAF J-6 (MiG-19 Farmer). Shenyang’s proposal was triggered by a British Spey 512 afterburning turbofan engine and followed a conventional light fighter design, with wings swept back and side of the fuselage assembly entries.
• The J-11 was a sophisticated design for its time, but the British Spey-512 engines proved “difficult” for Communist China to obtain at that time. Shenyang factory was ordered to concentrate their energies in the J-8, and J-11 never went beyond the planning stage.

 

J-11 Chinese Light Fighter Aircraft

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• The B-11 Gun
• The B-11 gun is designed by the Design Bureau under guidance of B.I. Shavyrin. Its barrel consists of a smooth-bore tube, chamber, breech and breech mechanism. It is fixed on a tripod mount consisting of frame and boom. In firing position, the gun rests on the tripod mount and the wheels are elevated above ground level. The gun is transported by means of a prime-mover.
• The gun can be transported in a truck body together with crew and ammo load. The gun can be also dropped by parachute.

 

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• Colt 1911
• Designed by John Browning, the M1911 Colt is arguably the most well known pistol in the world. It is a single-action, semi-automatic, magazine-fed, recoil-operated handgun chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge. It  served as the standard-issue side arm for the United States armed forces from 1911 to 1985 and was widely used in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
• The M1911 is still carried by some U.S. forces. Its formal designation as of 1940 was Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911 for the original Model of 1911 or Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911A1 for the M1911A1, adopted in 1924.
• In total, the United States procured around 2.7 million M1911 and M1911A1 pistols in military contracts during its service life. The M1911 was replaced by the M9 pistol as the standard U.S. sidearm in the early 1990s, but due to its popularity among users, it has not been completely phased out. Modern M1911 variants are still in use by some units within the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps.
• Many military and law enforcement organizations in the United States and other countries continue to use (often modified) M1911A1 pistols including Marine Corps Special Operations Command, Los Angeles Police Department S.W.A.T. and L.A.P.D. S.I.S., the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, F.B.I. regional S.W.A.T. teams, and 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta (Delta Force). The Tacoma, Washington Police Department selected the Kimber Pro Carry II or Pro Carry II HD as optional, department supplied weapons available to its officers

Colt 1911

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• Sig Sauer M11-A1
• Two of the most watched shows on television are NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles. The 2nd spinoff show, NCIS: LA features covert NCIS agents based out of Los Angeles investigating things that have nothing to do with NCIS and regularly getting into gunfights and leaving bodies all over LA. And each week, they’re correctly depicted using the Sig Sauer M11, the standard issue pistol for NCIS, Army CID, and a number of other special units of the US military.
• The Sig Sauer M11-A1 is a commercially available version of the military sidearm; upgrading the slide to stainless steel and adding Sig’s excellent Short Reset Trigger. The Sig M11-A1 comes standard with three 15-round magazines, and SigLite night sights.

 

Sig Sauer M11-A1

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• Smith & Wesson Model 11 .38 Pistol
• The American Smith & Wesson .38 Model 11 Revolver was supplied to British Commonwealth countries 1950s – 1970s for Police use. A standard 6-shot hand ejector with 4” barrel, ‘Mod 11’ marking and flared chequered walnut grips.

Smith-and-Wesson-Model-11

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• In music, movies and television
• The interval of an octave and a fourth is an 11th.
• A complete 11th chord has almost every note of a diatonic scale.
• The number of thumb keys on a bassoon, not counting the whisper key. (A few bassoons have a 12th thumb key.)
• In Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, there are 11 consecutive repetitions of the same chord.
• In Tool’s song Jimmy, and in Negativland’s song Time Zones the number 11 is heard numerous times in the lyrics.
• “Eleven pipers piping” is the gift on the 11th day of Christmas in the carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas”
• The Eleven is a song by The Grateful Dead.
• Eleven Records is the record label of Jason Webley, and many of Webley’s works feature the number 11.
• Three films, Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), have each won 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture of their respective years.

ben hur action shot

• Ocean’s Eleven is the name of two American films.
• The Eleventh Commandment is a feature length film by Allied Pictures Corp. (1933) adapted from the story The Pillory by Brandon Fleming.
• The Eleventh Commandment (1962) is a science fiction novel by Lester del Rey (USA). In a heavily overpopulated future, the Roman Catholic Church continues to encourage people to be fruitful and multiply. But there is a scientific reason behind this apparent madness.
• The number of incarnations of The Doctor in BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who is 11, as of 2012. (William Hartnell; Patrick Troughton; Jon Pertwee; Tom Baker; Peter Davison; Colin Baker; Sylvester McCoy; Paul McGann; Christopher Eccleston; David Tennant and Matt Smith)

The 11 actors who have played ‘The Doctor’

 

 

 

Other stuff

• Cities located at 11o longitude: Munich, Germany; Monrovia, Liberia
• Cities located at 11o latitude: Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Baranquilla, Colombia
• The eleventh hour means the last possible moment to take care of something, and often implies a situation of urgent danger or emergency (see Doomsday clock).
• 11 days were lost when the British imposed the Gregorian calendar in 1752, decreeing that the day following September 2 be called September 14.
• “Elevenses” is a tea or coffee taken at midmorning and often accompanied by a snack (British custom).
• The number 11 bus is a low-cost way of sightseeing in London
• In the game of blackjack, an Ace can be counted as either one or 11, whichever is more advantageous for the player.

• 11 is the number of the French department Aude.
• 11 is the channel assignment of GMA News TV in the Philippines (formerly ZOE-TV 11). Both owned by ZOE Broadcasting Network and GMA Network.
• The Roman numeral for 11 is XI.
• Steel wedding anniversary celebrates 11 years of marriage.
• K is the 11th letter of the English alphabet .
• Kaph is the 11th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and means “grasping hand”, with a numeric value of 20.
• Lambda is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet, meaning service, with numeric value of 30
• In Astrology, Aquarius is the 11th astrological sign of the Zodiac.
• The dog is the 11th sign of the Chinese Animal Zodiac based on the lunar year. Dog-year people are honest, intelligent, and straightforward, with a deep sense of loyalty and justice. The previous dog year was Feb. 10, 1994 to Jan. 30, 1995. The next lunar dog year is Jan. 29, 2006 to Feb. 17, 2007. People born in the dog year include Voltaire, Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa, Chou En-lai, Sophia Loren, Elvis Presley, and Bill Clinton.
• The Cologne coat of arms depicts the two-headed Imperial eagle holding sword and sceptre. The escutcheon (shield) shows three crowns (relics of the Three Magi kept in the Cologne Cathedral). The 11 black flames stand for the Patron Saint Ursula protecting the 11,000 virgins. Hans Memling (1440-1494) painted “Saint Ursula and the Holy Virgins” (1489) on wood at Saint Ursula Shrine in Bruges. Memling reduced the 11,000 virgins to a more manageable 11.  
• German Rhineland carnival season begins on 11.11 at 11:11 A.M. in Cologne.

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9 / 11

• The twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City looked like the number 11.
• It was 110 stories tall, rising 1353 feet and was the tallest building in the world, until surpassed by Chicago’s Sears Tower (1450 feet).
• WTC was built in 1966-1977 by Minoru Yamasaki.

• American Airlines Flight 11 was a passenger flight which was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. They deliberately crashed it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing all 87 people aboard plus the hijackers, and an unconfirmed number in the building’s impact zone. The aircraft involved, a Boeing 767-223ER, was flying American Airlines’ daily scheduled morning transcontinental service from Logan International Airport, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles International Airport, in Los Angeles, California.
• The second aircraft, a United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767–222, scheduled to fly from Logan International Airport, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles International Airport, in Los Angeles, California, hit the South Tower at 09.03.

• After the World Trade Center was demolished by terrorist attack on 9/11/2001, ceremonies were held on subsequent 9/11 dates near the site showing “Tribute in Light”— twin beams of light that resemble the number 11 projected to the sky.      

 

 

 

 

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If There Are No Stupid Questions, Then What Kind Of Questions Do Stupid People Ask?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The title of today’s post is part of a quote from Scott Adams. The whole thing goes, “If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?”.

I don’t know whether you could classify all of these questions as stupid or otherwise, there’s probably a mixture of both. Different people will probably have different opinions.

As usual if you have any answers then feel free to enlighten us all.

Enjoy.

 

 

Why are builders afraid to have a 13th floor but book publishers aren’t afraid to have a Chapter 11?

 

How do you handcuff a one-armed man?

 

If the FBI breaks your door down do they have to pay for it?

 

In some books, why do they have blank pages at the very end?

 

Why can’t donuts be square?

 

Why put a towel in the dirty clothes basket if when you get out of the shower you are clean?

 

What does happen to an irresistible force when it hits an immovable object?

 

If there’s a speed of sound and a speed of light is there a speed of smell?

 

Why do overalls have belt loops, since they are held up at the top by the straps?

 

Do people in prison celebrate halloween…. if so how?

 

Do the security guards at airports have to go through airport security when they get to work?

 

Why are all of the Harry Potter spells in Latin if he’s English?

 

What do Greeks say when they don’t understand something? “It’s all ???? to me.”

 

Do all-boy schools have girl’s bathrooms? Conversely, do all-girl schools have boy’s bathrooms?

 

Are children who act in rated ‘R’ movies allowed to see them?

 

How come cats’ butts go up when you pet them?

 

What would happen to the sea’s water level if every boat in the world was taken out of the water at the same time?

 

How come you never see a billboard being put up by the highway?

 

Do the English people eat English muffins, or are they just called muffins?

 

How much deeper would the ocean be if sponges didn’t grow in it?

 

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Another Selection Of Anagrams

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Last week’s selection of anagrams prompted a challenge to do one about ‘Clint Eastwood’ that included the word ‘stool’ in reference to his recent debacle at the Republican Party’s shin-dig in Florida. The best one I could come up with was – ‘Stool tactic a downer’ – but if you can do better please have a go by all means.

Meantime here is another selection for (I hope) your enjoyment and amusement.

 

 

‘federal bureau of investigation’

If found alive, abuse, interrogate!

———————-

 

‘washington dc’

Don’t shag in WC

———————-

 

‘princess diana’

Ascend in Paris

———————-

 

‘Microsoft Frontpage Technical Support’           

Oops, if PC falters contact or ring them up

———————-

 

‘Microsoft technical support’

Con, from culprit’s pathetic OS

———————-

 

‘Microsoft Incorporated’

Aim: no cost, record profit!

———————-

 

‘Microsoft Incorporated’

Moronic code rats profit

———————-

 

‘The Prince of Wales (Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor)’

E.R. recalls his torment, huge ears flapping about in the wind. Poor wretch!

———————-

 

‘Liposuction surgery’

Super, young clitoris

———————-

 

 ‘Author George Orwell’

Wrote “Hog-Rule Galore!”

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‘The President Of The United States Of America, George Walker Bush’

The twit threatens Baghdad. (To make sure of oil preference, I guess!)

———————-

 

‘The USA President George Bush’

Bugger the one stupid ass here!

———————-

 

‘George Walker Bush, President of the United States of America’

Damn! Result is garbage, takes pretender to White House office

———————-

 

‘The Terrorist Osama Bin Laden’

Arab monster is no idle threat

———————-

 

‘Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden’

Bad human demon and ideal assassin.

———————-

 

‘Dan Brown, writer of the Da Vinci Code.’

Torrid wand of a bewitched conniver

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‘Hamas wins election’

New hostile maniacs

———————-

 

‘The first moon landing’

Grand hit on film-set, No?

 

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Smart Thieves And Stupid Police – The Ideal Recipe For The Perfect Crime

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Just as a bit of a contrast to yesterday’s post, today I have ten stories, which are either about thieves who were smart enough to get away with it, or police who were too dumb to catch them.

The readers can make up their own minds.

Enjoy.

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1. Double Trouble

On Feb 25, 2009, three masked robbers boldly busted into Kaufhaus Des Westens, the second largest department store in Europe.

Via a rope ladder, the men were able to enter and ransack the main floor without tripping any sensors or alarms.

But what may have been a fatal error – leaving behind a single glove – ended up creating a bizarre situation.

DNA found on the glove matched TWO people: identical twins identified as Hassan and Abbas O.

German law however requires that each person be individually convicted and because their DNA is so similar, neither can be exclusively pinned to the evidence.

German police were forced to set them both free, and the third man has yet to be found.

identical twins – how do you tell them apart?

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2. The World’s Most Famous Fugitive

No, it’s not the one about Dr Richard Kimble trying to hunt down the one-armed man, although many readers may well be familiar with this story too which is about probably the world’s most famous fugitive.

On the night before Thanksgiving, November 24, 1971, a passenger by the name of Dan Cooper boarded a plane in Portland, OR bound for Seattle.

Clad in a suit and raincoat, wearing dark glasses and carrying a briefcase, he sat silently in the back of the plane. After calmly lighting a cigarette (yes smoking was permitted in airplanes in those days), he ordered a whiskey from the stewardess and then handed her a note.

It read, ‘I HAVE A BOMB IN MY BRIEFCASE. I WILL USE IT IF NECESSARY. I WANT YOU TO SIT NEXT TO ME. YOU ARE BEING HIJACKED.’

He demanded $200,000 and four parachutes delivered to him in Seattle.

When the plane landed, he released all the passengers, save for the pilot, co-pilot, and stewardess.

Once the money was delivered in the middle of the brightly-lit tarmac, Cooper demanded the pilot take off for Mexico, flying at an altitude of 10,000 feet.

Shortly after takeoff, over the mountains northwest of Portland, the six-foot-tall Cooper strapped on a parachute and jumped.

He was never heard from again.

Did he survive?

In 1980, roughly $6000 was found of the money in bundles on a beach, but no signs of a body.

The case remains open and is the only unsolved crime in US aviation history.

The Fugitive – The Illusive Dan Cooper

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3. Cops And Robbers – Boston Style

On March 18, 1990, the day after Saint Patrick’s Day, policemen arrived at the door of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, claiming to have received a call about a disturbance.

Breaking protocol, the security officer let them in.

One of the men said he had a warrant for the guard’s arrest, and they convinced him to step away from his post.

Bad move: the “policemen” were really criminals in disguise, and they quickly handcuffed him and ordered him to call the other guard to the front, who was also subdued.

The thieves absconded with 13 paintings, including masterworks by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Degas, worth a third of a billion dollars.

To this date, no one has been arrested in conjunction with the crime, nor have the paintings ever been recovered.

Robbers dressed as cops – would they fool you?

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4. Cops And Robbers – Japanese Style

On December 10, 1968, in Tokyo, Japan, a Nihon Shintaku Ginko Bank car, transporting 300 million Yen ($817,000 US) in its trunk, was pulled over by a policeman on a motorcycle, who warned them of a bomb planted underneath.

Since there had already been bomb threats against the bank, the four passengers exited the vehicle as the uniformed patrolman inspected below the car.

Moments later, smoke and flames could be seen under the vehicle, causing the men to run for cover.

Of course, it turned out the smoke was from a flare and the cop was a phony.

He jumped in the car and sped off with the loot.

Even though there were 120 pieces of evidence, 110,000 suspects and 170,000 police investigators, the man was never caught.

In 1975, the statute of limitations ended, and in 1988 all civil liabilities were voided, but still no one ‘fessed up.

man under car

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5. Diamonds Are Forever – Unless Someone Steals Them

The largest diamond heist in history was stolen from the world’s most impenetrable vault, located in Antwerp, Belgium.

Two floors below the Diamond Centre, it was protected by a lock with 100 million possible combinations, as well as heat/motion sensors, radar, magnetic fields, and a private security force.

However, on the weekend of Feb 15, using a series of moves that would make Danny Ocean jealous, the thieves were able to silently enter the vault, bust open the safe deposit boxes, and make off with the glittering loot.

And although the purported ring leader Leonardo Notarbartolo was caught and sentenced to 10 years, he has since been released on parole.

Notarbartolo claimed in an interview in Wired Magazine that the true take was only $20 million and was part of a larger conspiracy involving insurance fraud.

Whatever — the loot was never recovered.

Diamonds are forever – sometimes!

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6. The Disappearing $million

On Friday October 7, 1977, before Columbus Day Weekend, a bank worker counted $4 million dollars in cash and stored it in a locked money cart within a heavily guarded vault, two floors below the Chicago First National Bank.

Then poof!

Tuesday morning, the money is counted again, and exactly $1 million dollars – in $50 and $100 dominations and weighing over 80 pounds – had vanished into thin air.

In 1981, $2300 of the money showed up in a drug raid, but otherwise both the perpetrators and the cash are still at large.

cash pile

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7. The Pink Panthers

The winner for boldest burglary goes to the perpetrators of the so-called Harry Winston Heist.

On December 4, 2008, four men, three of whom wore long blonde wigs and disguised themselves as women, charmed their way into the famous Harry Winston Paris jewelry store just before closing time.

Once inside, they brandished a .357 revolver and a hand grenade and began their pillaging.

Less than 15 minutes later they escaped with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds worth an estimated $108 million US.

Investigators believe it to be the work of the notorious Serbian criminal gang The Pink Panthers, responsible for $132 million in robberies around the world.

They have never been caught.

Obviously the police needed Inspector Clouseau on the case.

Inspector Clouseau

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8. Tucker Cross Or Double Cross?

The Tucker Cross, was named after diver Teddy Tucker who, in 1955, recovered it from the 1594 wreck of the San Pedro.

It was a 22-karat gold cross embedded with sparkling green emeralds and considered priceless.

Nonetheless, Tucker sold it to the Government of Bermuda for an undisclosed sum.

In 1975, the Cross was moved to the Bermuda Museum of Art to be displayed for Queen Elizabeth II.

No one knows when or how, but during this transition, a clever thief replaced the original with a cheap plastic replica.

Presumably, this historical artifact was melted down, stripped of its jewels, and funneled into the Black Market.

The Tucker Cross

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9. Fancy A Brazilian?

No, nothing to do with Kim Kardashian or the netherlands. This happened in 2005, in Fortaleza, Brazil at the Banco Central, when a gang of enterprising thieves managed to carry off one of the biggest heists of all time. 

This heist was the result of painstaking planning by a small gang of burglars who tunneled over 250 feet to the bank’s vault from a nearby property.

The robbers used a landscaping business as a front that allowed them to move massive amounts of dirt and rock without looking suspicious.

The tunnel was expertly constructed and had sophisticated lighting and even an air conditioning system.

After three months of digging, the thieves finally broke into the vault and made off with what was equivalent to $70 million dollars.

Since then, police have made a number of arrests in connection with the burglary and recovered roughly $9 million dollars of the haul, but the majority of the suspects are still at large.

Part of the tunnel at the Banco Central  –  the police are looking into it!

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10. The Thieves Of Baghdad

On July 11th, 2007 in Baghdad a private financial institution, Dar Es Salaam, was robbed by two, or possibly three guards.

They got away with a third of a billion in cash, all US bills.

Perhaps the bank itself did not want people to start wondering where, how, and why it had so much cash at hand, so they have kept mum and there has been minimal press.

But somewhere, the successful thieves are laughing all the way from this bank.

The Thieves Of Baghdad

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