Author: Grievous

An Uneducated View on Current Events (I)

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Singapore vehicles can continue topping up on petrol in Johor, the Malaysian government said yesterday, ending days of uncertainty over whether it would implement a ban within 50km of the border.

The news came with the announcement of a 40 per cent hike in petrol prices from today.

Analysts say the move is a high-stakes gamble by Premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is fighting for his political survival. [Source: Straits Stooge Times, 5 Jun 2008]

This move is so much better and much more intelligent.

Keeping the subsidies and implementing a ban on foreign cars would be stupidity in the highest order. First of all, keeping the subsidies at the previous level would be like not doing something about the ‘bleeding’ that comes out of an ever enlarging wound. Next, implementing a ban would be the equivalent of cutting off the transfusion of blood coming in to replenish the blood you lose. It would be suicidal.

Either way, the days of low oil prices are over and some people should just live with it. How is it acceptable that at one point of time petrol was actually cheaper than even drinking water in some places? Consider this, water is a necessity, and burning fuel in your car is actually a luxury.

It really amazes me that the Malaysian opposition make a big fuss over this and actually ask the BN gahmen to maintain the subsidies and tighten their belts. There are few gahmens in this world that need to tighten their belts – Singapore being one of them.

Finally, The Financial Times reports that Bear Stearns tried to do a refinancing deal with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek just days before it was forced into the arms of JPMorgan Chase. Temasek is said to have declined to get involved for both practical and political reasons. [Source: HereIsTheCity 5 Jun 2008]

What practical and political reasons will stop the mighty Temasek in acquiring Bear Stearns, but didn’t stop them from investing in… UBS and Merryl Lynch, or even Shit Shin Corp? Perhaps there’s something about Bear Stearns we mere mortals didn’t know but Temasek does?

But with 20/20 hindsight, we mere mortals do know the fact that Bear Stearns was practically sold for a song to JP Morgan Chase. The original US$236 million deal sees Bear’s shares valued at US$2 each, and JP Morgan exchanging 0.05473 of each of its shares for every Bear share. At that point of time, Bear Stearns was valued at US$3.54bn based on its US$30-a-share price at the end of trading day.

I don’t know what Temasek was offered, but paying US$236 million for S$3.54 billion asset must have been a real bargain. In fact, even if we don’t look at Bear Stearns’ paper value, it’s building at 383 Madison in New York is worth US$1.2 billion! An almost US$1 billion worth in profits instantly. Now, the only real practical reason I can think of, for Temasek to walk away from this, is that the so-called ‘Federal Reserve’ did not agree to provide a $30 billion lifeline for the deal.

Anyway? If anyone had bought Bear Stearns shares off the market after the deal was announced, they would have made a bundle out of it as well. A week or two after the announcement of the deal, JP Morgan offered to sweeten the deal to US$10 a share! On that day itself, Bear Stearns shares hit US$11.25. In short, if you have bought the shares even at US$3, you would have made at least US$8 a piece.

Just try and imagine that if you had as much money as Temasek, and after you offered the crap deal at US$2 and bought a large bundle of the shares off the open market, you now say you will increase your bid to $10. Basically, you made some profits out of thin air, didn’t you?

Anyway, don’t flame me for all these, please! I have already said they are uneducated views. Is it a surprise if my views over these matters are well… wrong?

Scammers! They do books too!

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A friend who runs an online store told me on WLM (Windows Live Messenger) recently that some scammers were trying to pull a fast one on her. Here’s the chronology of events:

  • June 1, 2008 (Sunday) 2318hrs
    Friend received an email from an Andrew Goodluck (they can’t even be bothered to be more creative than that!) from the Benin Republic using the email account and_goodluck@yahoo.com requesting the price for 50 copies of the Standard Handbook for Electrical Engineers, Fourteenth Edition (ISBN 0071441468 / 9780071441468)

  • June 1, 2008 (Sunday) 2331hrs
    Already suspicious of the origins of the email, friend replied with a request for the shipment address before she would provide the cost information. It is reasonable since you might want to include shipping charges in the official quote as the buyer may still be genuine.

  • June 2, 2008 (Monday) 2039hrs
    The scammers replied, informing my

    friend that they wanted the Fifteenth Edition instead, with the following address information:

    ABLS Limited
    Attn Kenneth Ejike
    Siege Cimetiere Habitat
    Face Station Akpakpa
    Route De Porteo-Novo.
    Cotonue,
    Benin Republic.
    Western Africa

    Is it not already obvious by now this might be just some kind of the Nigerian Scam?

  • June 3, 2008 (Tuesday) 1243hrs
    Either my friend is bored and she is looking for some comedy, or she is still hoping that this is a genuine customer. She gave him a proper quotation, roughly about $8000 in total, and asks for ‘Andrew’ to TT (telegraphic transfer) the amount to her before she delivers them.

  • June 4, 1989 2008 (Wednesday) 2011hrs
    The scammers replied (I quote, without correcting the grammar and spelling mistakes!):

    Thanks for your load down information. But I want to let you know that we have lost so much to online sellers, who request for payment upfrontly just like you did and when payment is received they withhold the goods and money. For this reason, we have resolve to always bring in our bank while trying to purchase on the internet. I will advice you contact my bank through email address: barcleys_wire.trans@account.com we bank with barclays bank.London. I have also forward this transaction to them, hopefully they will contact you before tommorrow runs out.
    muc regard
    Andrew Goodluck

    Damn. Do they think we are really stupid? And why would Barclays not use an email from their own domain name? Not to mention the obvious mistake of spelling their own company name wrong? For goodness sake, my friend who works in OCBC Security gets an ocbcsec.com email address, and Barclays Premier League is not some obscure thing from the planet Sirius Secundus!

  • June 4, 2008 (Wednesday) 2052hrs
    Now my friend is really amused, and so she decided to disturb them by replying them with a fake address she created on her own on the .biz domain. And we thought the story will end here! Just how wrong we are!!

It was to her immense amusement when she received this email (see below)!


For a clearer copy: download PDF copy here

Man, they really try so hard to make it look authentic. So hard that unless you aren’t net savvy (or you are exceptionally stupid or desperate for business), you will have figured out that it’s a fake right away.

To think of it, from Andrew Goodluck, to barcleys, and finally barclary, it would seem to me that they were all along leaving hints to you: We are scammers, Don’t fall for it!

Thieves honor? I really do not know. And I wonder just how much effort they need to go through before they even get one fellow stupid enough to fall for it, and I wonder just how they are going to get some money out of my friend from this, since it’s her asking for the money now.

Either way, no one wanted to risk it by providing account information. For all we know the account might just end up plundered. We both just had a freaking good laugh looking at it and agreed to share this with everybody so they can have a good laugh too.

Sphinx of Egypt under threat of birds

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Sphinx sheds tears of joy on Obama win…
Birds resting on the face of the world famous Sphinx of Egypt

The above photo shows birds resting on the face of the world famous Sphinx of Egypt. If these birds nests on its head, or use it constantly as a potential resting place, their acidic droppings will pose a threat to the monument as they will have an erosive impact on the fragile stone. Experts warn that the cause maybe rising groundwater level, as water seeping into the stone and creating calcium deposits may explain why the monument is attracting an increasing number of birds.

This is really sad… We risk potentially losing a monument which is 5000 over years old and goes all the way back to the earliest days of the human race’s recorded history. Had I been ignorant, I would have thought that the monument was a tribute to Michael Jackson, since it has apparently also lost its nose.

0925 [Reuters] Obama wins historic Democratic nomination

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Obama wins historic Democratic nomination

Game over, Hilarious. And who was the guy who said he was right and I am wrong? Obviously NOT!

Sen Barack Obama has swept to victory in the epic contest for the [US] democratic presidential nomination, with a surge of support from uncommitted delegates giving him over and above the total 2,118 delegate votes he needed to clinch the nomination. The win makes him the first major presidential candidate of African American descent. Sen Hillary Clinton may well concede defeat as early as tonight, and already told congressional colleagues she was open to becoming Obama’s vice president nomination. Obama will be officially crowned the Democratic nominee at the convention in August and will face Republican John McCain in Nov 4ths Presidential election. [Source: Reuters]

vs

Miscellaneous

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  1. Twitter account has been deleted and Twitter widget removed from the sidebar.

  2. A funny dream: Some where in a hot sunny peninsular… After several relay races, someone from the losing team complained that the other contestants had an unfair advantage. To make it fair, they changed the rules and declared that now all these other contestants will run with an handicap. The team that complained the loudest about such cheating was banned and thrown out of the games.

    In fact, as times goes by, some among his team were given a unfair head start, and even given better shoes. It doesn’t matter than the performance of all teams remained dismal and no one has broken any records. Best of it all, the clown who implemented the unfair regulations declared that it had help everyone when all he had to show was that some among the team now runs real well and even faster than others. Doesn’t matter their team has never won!

    Finally, all the teams could take it no more, and decided that they would all run fairly in some races. And in one of the race, the record was broken.

    Moral of the story: When you suck, cheating won’t help you win. And it spoils the competition.

  3. Yet another funny dream: Somewhere in the streets of a booming capitalist hamlet of a up and coming socialist superpower… In the midst of hot steamy sex with a prostitute, a brothel customer kicked over a flower pot on the side of a ledge onto the streets below. It shatters resoundingly on the street below and missed some pedestrians narrowly. Some of pedestrians protested and were told by the brothel customer to act like adults while the prostitute told them to just fxxk off because she’s has got lots of ‘business’ to do and no one else on the streets gives a flying fxxk about the near miss.

    Moral of the story: To some it doesn’t matter if you are almost hurt because it’s unintentional. You should just be grateful you didn’t die from it. Don’t expect an apology because you are in the wrong for complaining!

以上故事纯属虚构，如有雷同，实属巧合。
All events, characters and incidents portrayed in these stories are fictional. Any similarity to any persons, living or dead, or to any actual events is coincidental and unintentional.

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