My view of the world

The Russians may not have invented gambling, but it’s a national obsession. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the rapid westernization of Russia, they not only have Oligarks (billionaires), they have Las Vegas style casinos.

The fronts of these casinos may look like Vegas, complete with Neon signs, but the attitude on the inside tends to be serious, of course that could be because the joints are full of Russians.
This is a $7.5 billion dollar business, that employs thousands, but now, spurred on by the Kremlin, the Russian parliament has passed a law which will force all casinos and slot machine arcades to close down over the next two years.
Instead gambling is to be confined within four special zones in different parts of the country, all outside the cities. The government is very deliberately aiming to separate the population from the casinos. They’re trying to deal with gambling addiction, but the customers will not only travel to these outlying casinos, just like americans travel to indian casinos, they’ll gamble online.
At least one casino owner says that his next destination will probably be India.

A friend mentioned that he had read an article in one of the asian newspapers, that said the chinese were coming here with suitcases full of money to invest.
I think I found the source of this story on the DOJ website.
According to this two former managers of the Bank of China, their wives, and a relative laundered at least $485 million that belonged to the Bank of China.
The scheme allegedly involved efforts by the bank managers to launder the stolen money through, Hong Kong, Canada and the United States, among other countries, and then immigrate to the United States from China with their wives by obtaining false identities and entering into sham marriages with naturalized U.S. citizens.
Among other places, they used Las Vegas casinos to launder the money.
Since they were apparently planning on moving here, I wouldn’t be suprised if they invested some of that money in Las Vegas real estate.
$485 million. Now that’s a lot of suitcases.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Chinese government has allowed Marsh & McLennan’s insurance-brokerage unit to become the first foreign company to obtain a license to operate a wholly owned venture in China, in a sign of how Beijing is following through on pledges to allow strong competitors into parts of its financial sector.

According to an article in Reuters the Las Vegas Sands Corp, seems to have gotten near final approval to build it’s resort on Hengqin Island near Macau, where they already have a resort.
It said the Zhuhai government had established a “Project Coordination Committee specifically related to the company’s proposed development of The Venetian Hengqin International Convention and Resort Project in Zhuhai.”

Wal-mart is increasing the number of stores in China from 66 to 90.
Here’s an article in Newsweek International on the way they do business there.

In Dalian, a coastal town in northeastern China, Wal-Mart (WMT ) has a multilevel underground store beneath a soccer field named Olympic Square. The local tourism bureau has designated the store as a tourist destination.
Walmart as a tourist destination?? God, I hope I never get that bored.

Just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, a man I knew took a train trip from Poland, across the USSR, and down through China to Hong Kong.
This trip showed him a couple of important things.
The first is: Buy your vodka in Poland and buy lots of it, as everyone you meet will want to help you drink it, and the farther east you go, the more expensive and worse tasting it gets.
The second is: In China, the farmers had a wheat quota to meet and any extra they got to keep, in the USSR they still used the old communist sytem. In the USSR the wheat was laying over in the fields and right across the border in China the second crop was planted and up.

Previously, Beijing had allowed foreign retailers to open stores in China, but only if they had sales of more than $2 billion.
That group included only Wal-Mart, Carrefour of France and the Metro Group of Germany.
Last week Beijing opened the door to smaller players, like Marsh & McLennan, and lifted rules that had confined the three giants to a limited number of cities and forced them to work with Chinese partners.
From the outside looking in, I’d say China has figured out that the Hong Kong model isn’t half bad. They can keep the government as is, and as long as they allow a bit of free enterprise everybody makes money, including the government and this new found wealth draws the mega-corps.

Time to stop and smell the roses. If things don’t change, china will completely overshadow us as the world’s economic super power, which means they win the war without firing a shot.
In the mean time, our government will continue to support companys like Walmart and will continue to see nothing wrong with our being a debtor nation.
Why is it, everytime I hear some government backed economist speak, I feel like I’m watching a very badly written episode of Pinky and the Brain?

The airforce has developed what they call, self cleaning underwhere.
This material kills bacteria and causes liguids to bead up and fall off.
Ok, good idea, but won’t the “liquids” simply roll down your the insides of pants?
And you thought clean socks were a problem before.

Hitachi announced a one terrabyte hard drive, they say the first model should hit store shelves in the first quarter of this year.
Seagate announced that their 1TB drive will be available sometime in the first half of this year.
The cost of the Hitachi has been set at $399, and I would expect the Seagate to be about the same.
Wonderful, now those of us who make a habit of not cleaning house until we run out of hard disk space, will have to install one of the desktop search engines.
I’ll buy four and run them in raid 0 +1, so I can lose things efficiently.

In less cheery news.
The army says that the latest chopper to go down may have been taken down by a shoulder fired surface to air missle.
Now Russia is selling these to Iran.

Tor M1 missile launcher.
Since these are defensive weapons they are legal to sell to Iran.
Iran is also testing short range ground to ground missiles
Among missiles to be tested were the Fajr 5, which military sources have reported has a range of around 75km, and the Zelzal which is said to have a range of 100 to 400km.
Iran has begun staging a series of war games and vowed to block UN nuclear inspectors from entering the country in a fresh show of defiance over its disputed nuclear ambitions.

Didn’t at least one Ayatollah tell this putz to stand down. Now he says:
“As our supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] said, no Iranian official has the right to back down on Iran’s nuclear right.”
In November, Iran test-fired dozens of missiles, including the Shahab-3 which can reach Israel.
In December 2005, Israel successfully tested its Arrow missile defence system against a rocket similar to Iran’s Shahab-3.

In the face of all this high tech, “my missile can beat up your missile,” b.s. it occured to me, that the way you kill an individual soldier hasn’t really changed since the invention of gunpowder.
And the other thing that occured to me is that their President, isn’t any wonkier than our President.

I said I’d pass this along.
This is from Old Dude’s blog.
Over at the LasVegasVegas Blog, they’re looking for translators.
The general idea is to find articulate, educated people to translate their blogs into a number of foreign languages.
They are interested in Simplified Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, Russian, and so on.
Any language would be considered. The reason for insisting on live translators instead of computer generated translations, is obvious. This is an attempt to properly communicate both the words and the intent of the articles.
They don’t have much of a budget, but I’m certain they will give the translators full credit on each page.

The LasVegasVegas poker blog and the LasVegasVegas Las Vegas blog are both a page rank 6 and get a fair amount of traffic.
Their business and politics blog hasn’t been rated by Google as of yet, but the traffic numbers are very good.

If you’re just starting out or would like to get started as a translator, this project will get you exposure on an established website.
Use this link to contact them.

God watches over drunks and small children. A 21-year-old Russian has recently become another living proof of the old saying. The guy, allegedly guilty of rape, took a leap from the fifth floor while running away from the police. He survived the jump unscathed. Then he stole a car and crashed it into another vehicle.

That’s the lead in to the story:
It seems this guy (whom the article refered to as a scumbag) forced two women into an apartment at knife point, he then raped one of them, taking the occational break for another drink of vodka, he went completely wacko and began slashing the womans breasts.
When he finished the bottle, he passed out, the women left and called the cops, the cops tried to talk him into giving himself up, but he jumped out the fifth story window instead.
Evidently a tree broke his fall and he sustained no injuries. He carjacked a BMW and the police had to pursue in a taxi. The “scumbag” ran into another car, chase over.

What caught my eye was the politically correct phrase, “allegedly guilty of rape,” closely followed by the word “scumbag.”

And the visual of a policeman standing on the curb with one hand raised, yelling. “Taxi,” probably shouldn’t be funny, but it is.

A man murdered his girfriend with an axe:
The man told the police that he could see dreadful green tentacles growing from the woman’s head, arms and legs. The awe-stricken man reacted very quickly: he grabbed an axe and slew the mutated female. “I simply decided to slash the evil vermin into pieces,” the murderer told the police.
He then went next door and told the lady of the house that he was there to kill her and her entire family, she pushed him away, closed the door and called the police.
Forensic experts say that the criminal is most likely a mentally unbalanced individual.
Really. What gave you the first clue?

Back in August I was talking to Rich over at Pioneer Loan, when he mentioned that their logo that they had been using for more than ten years, had been stolen, by the folks at another site. In fact the other people are even using it on one of their vehicles.

The Pioneer finally got their logo formally trademarked, but this required lawyers, and jumping through hoops.

Why didn’t they just have their lawyers send this putz a nasty letter and be done with it?
They can prove copyright by way of “previous art,” and while trademark is a good thing, I hardly think it’s required in this matter.

According to his website the guy is still using it as of today.

The reason for this post is to ask the question: Why would you steal somebody else’s logo?
Where’s the profit in pretending to be part of something you’re not?
You have to know that sooner or later the other company is going to find out about it and that they are going to be less than pleased.

My guess would be that this person is trying to gain legitamacy, through association with an established brand.
Or perhaps, the person responsible is just one of those people who sees nothing wrong with taking what doesn’t belong to him and using it as if he owned it.
This complete disregard for anyone else’s rights or reputation seems rather childish, but it’s not unheard of.

Now that Pioneer Loan has a trademark, in addition to a copyright, perhaps they’ll get around to suing for trademark or copyright violation.

This from the Editor and Publisher Jan. 11, 2007:
“The White House broke with tradition Wednesday night and refused to let photojournalists shoot still pictures of the president at the podium after his prime-time address on the Iraq war.”
This may sound like a strange question, but, why didn’t the whitehouse allow still photographers at the press conference when King George announced he was sending 21,500 more troops to Iraq?
Could it be, that they have finally figured out that in unposed photographs he tends to look like a dork?

Also from the Editor and Publisher:
Of course, controlling the photo coverage isn’t the same as controlling the story. Thursday’s New York Daily News dutifully reproduced the official handout photo of the president’s speech on its front page – underneath the headline “SORRY … BUT I’M SENDING 21,500 MORE OF YOU OFF TO WAR.”

In less entertaining news about the “surge.”
Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, said: “In choosing to escalate the war, the president virtually stands alone.” He branded the policy a “serious mistake” and predicted that the Senate would vote overwhelmingly to reject it in a non-binding motion.
Non-binding?? Come on, Harry, show some backbone.
The Democrats are afraid to be seen as not supporting our troops, which means that King George is allowed to persue an approach that has failed, relying on allies that are backing away, and depending to a great degree on a turn around by an uncooperative and incompetent Iraqi government.

Responding to questions, Robert Gates said the new troops would be sent in gradually.
One brigade will go in the middle of this month. A second brigade won’t go until the middle of next month.”
“And then they will flow at roughly monthly intervals, so that after we have sent in just two or three of the brigades, I think we will… have a pretty good idea whether at least on the military side the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate in terms of fulfilling their commitments.
But Mr Gates did not say what the US would do if the Iraqi government failed to meet the commitments.

I wonder how many helicopters they’ll have to push into the ocean this time.

Well, I heard our new Governor speak officially in his new capacity. It was the usual, reach across the aisle, join together bull that every politician spouts as they come into office.

He’s given some memorable sound bytes in the recent past, like:
“tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, hippie, tie-dyed liberals [in Hollywood should] … go make their movies and their music and whine somewhere else,” adding, “it’s just too damn bad we didn’t buy them a ticket” to become human shields in Iraq.

Or how about the one on corporate-funded celebrations:
“Anybody who is against that obviously must be a communist.”

And of course, everybody’s favorite quote after the whole Chrissy Mazzeo thing:
“I have to admit that, gosh, I learned an important lesson - never to offer a helping hand to anybody ever again.”

Now, you see, wouldn’t it be better if politicians entertained us with the dumb things they’ve already said, so we’d have an idea of what to expect in the future, instead of giving us the same old peace, love, and brotherhood speech that nobody believes and that we all just sleep through anyway.

For a more serious view of the subject, try the Las Vegas Business and Politics Blog.

Congress has capped loans to active military personnel at 36% apr, including all fees and anything like loan insurance.
They have banned title and payday loans entirely.
The sponsers of the amendment sited this instance:

An active duty E-7 — sergeant first class — assigned to Fort Jackson.

This rank earns between $55,000 and $72,000, depending on years of service and other factors.
The sergeant had two payday loans worth $1,862, a $37,550 car loan, and two military installment loans worth $15,000. He could not make all the payments. Ultimately, after he was harassed by debt collectors, his unit intervened, the report said.
This sergeant apparently has no concept of a budget.
As I see it, the problem with this example is that his payday loans totaled less than $2000 of a total of $54,412 and as I understand the new law, he could still have gotten himself $52,412 in debt.
They make no mention of mortgage or rent or any other expenses, so with this example they are manipulating the figures to place blame where they want it to appear.
I doubt that the sergeant needed a $40,000 car, but he was the example they chose, and was held blameless for his own actions.

This bill is typical of congress, they fail to address the problem, and instead harm those who are responsible and might need a small loan for a couple of weeks.

Those who cannot or will not control their spending, will always have money trouble.
Of course not everyone with money problems, is to blame for their situation, and most of those cannot be helped with a short term loan, but for those times when a small loan until the next payday would help, the military is now s.o.l.
And there will always be a guy at the bar who would be more than happy to help…for a price.

No matter how well intentioned, you cannot legislate morality, much less common sense.

Her plan is straight forward, in her first hundred days speech she said.
Day One: Put new rules in place to “break the link between lobbyists and legislation.”
Yeah, right, and all those members who are accepting gifts and campaign contributions are suddenly going to turn them down, really, they will. Would she lie?

Day Two: “Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”
That’s already in the toilet, the oversight changes alone would take power away from a collection of power mad committee chairs.

Here’s a few of the rest:
“Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour.”
Possible, but only if the big companies and their pet congressmen go along.

“Pay as you go, meaning no increasing the deficit, whether the issue is middle class tax relief, health care or some other priority.”
But how will places like Alaska and Hawaii survive without their daily serving of pork, and how can we send troops overseas to make the world safe from democracy, if we have to actually pay the bills?

“Broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds, etc.”
What, they ran all the evangelicals out of DC and the Whitehouse?

Ladys and gentlemen, boys and girls, step right up, you’re not going to believe your eyes. Nancy Pelosi is gonna single-handedly change the entire political system, and for only one thin dime, one tenth of a dollar, you can see it happen.
Hurry, hurry hurry, step right up.