Posts Tagged ‘crime’
Freak coincidence or sneaky hustle?
September 18th, 2009 | 
Author: 
Derren Brown is flummoxed
Swords are being sharpened and black masks donned as Bulgarian police prepare an investigation into the country’s lottery draw. Allegations of fraud have been flung about since last Saturday, when the 6 numbers drawn were the same as those drawn the previous week.
Eighteen people shared the win — nobody won the first time — each receiving the princely sum of 10,164 leva (4,633 GB pounds, or 10,753 NZ dollars*).
It doesn’t seem a fitting amount of moolah for what surely is the biggest, slickest, awe-inspiring lottery shakedown of all time. Even that hack Derren Brown couldn’t achieve something close to it.
The grand healthcare debate: political argument done wrong
Operation 'Soylent Green' in action
Did Stephen Hawking change nationality? Maybe while we weren’t looking, perhaps? Maybe he lied about being born in London and educated at Oxford University. Is he, like the crew of the HMS Bulldog before him, secretly an American?
I ask because the Investor’s Business Daily, a US rag, recently highlighted the shocking ineptitude of the British National Health Service in an editorial, saying, “People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the UK where the National Health Service would say the quality of life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.” Which was news to the man who survived only because of medical treatment from – you guessed it – the NHS.
Essex police unveil new meaning of the word ‘fact’
Ignore the facts, the police chief knows all.
People in Essex have more chance of winning the Lotto than being mugged, police authority chief Robert Chambers claims. However, the data available from Camelot and Essex Police websites tell a different story.
Mr Chambers insisted that his statement was ‘fact’. “You are more likely to win the lottery than you are to get mugged in Essex,” he said, “That’s a fact.”
Figures on the force website record 276 robberies in Essex between the start of April this year and the end of June; the monthly average is shown to be 92 muggings throughout the county.
Why go to the supermarket for fresh produce when you can eat rotten cabbage out of the bin?
Not a good look, but it suits him.
Western capitalism is a well-maintained perpetual motion machine. Its various cogs and gears are oiled regularly with the blood and tears of the workforce. However, the machine requires maintenance, and parts must be replaced or cleaned.
And then there are parts that don’t do anything at all: the gall bladders of machinery. They might not be moving parts or they might perform an auxiliary role in the whole system, but their mere presence at a reduced or non-existent level of functionality means other parts must work harder and faster to compensate.
Freegans are the ultimate example of this. They smugly condemn us rat-racers as crazy. These people freely admit to finding nourishment in the discarded produce of society.
Dumbasses for Dummies – a guide to virtual stupidity
Available now from all bad bookstores
The internet is a marvel. Since its incarnation as a tool to enable research to be shared between universities, it has grown so much. It is now an interactive platform capable of enabling myriad arseholes an outlet for their barely coherent and almost always misinformed outbursts under the guise of “Having your say”.
Anyone who has used the internet to share their opinion, ever, will be familiar with the kind of ignorant nonsense that some folk consider to be worthy of voicing. Go to a news site, or forum, anywhere, and scroll down to below the story. Read the first comment from “NRA_4EVA” – see?
When YouTube was first launched I fully expected it to turn into a catalog of near death experiences captured by dim-witted American college kids, yearning to imitate their Jackass heroes. For a while I was right. Then the corporations found out they could “leverage” sales out of “viral” marketing yada yada yada.
Tags: art, crime, dumbasses, exploitation, fake-tan, infomercial, link salad, morons, opinion, publishing, review, social media, spam, video, web 2.0 | 
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Wimbledon vs. Glastonbury: an amateur’s guide to summer
Presumably I would look like this if I got dressed after having a bucket of Pimm's for breakfast
The roof couldn't close quick enough to save from ruining this bloke's life entirely.
Every year in the middle of June, Merton College offers a one week crash course in the vagaries of tennis. The lessons comprise learning by rote key phrases of benign claptrap to regurgitate to anyone, whether they care or not, during the insufferable two weeks that is the British tennis season.
The courses are extremely popular, attracting pasty inbreds from all corners of the country. Armchair sportspersons prepare in earnest to provide us all with the discourse which serves as background noise everywhere you go for half a month.
The big talking point this year is the retractable roof, a concertina of steel and plastic that takes thirty minutes to shut. Born out of necessity, given the typical climate in London during the tournament, officials must use their extra senses or mutant powers to exactly match the complete shutting of the roof to just before the heavens open.
Tags: crime, exploitation, fashion, morons, sport, tv, what the fuck is wrong with you |
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Zimbabwe does DIY with currency
Zimbabwe: a crippled economy just got worse
We spend a lot of time complaining about money. As a Welshman living in London, I still haven’t worked out the exchange rate between bales of wool and pounds sterling, which means that I continually overspend every month. Payday invokes warm little feelings down below for me, which is why my girlfriend refuses to talk to me on the first of the month.
Of course, rent, bills and the Xbox soon suck the newfound euphoria back out of my loins. But, for that two days a month I can be called solvent, I am happy.
So imagine what it would be like if your employer turned round and refused to pay you in real money.
New Ryanair policy: “We hate you, and we hope you die in a plane crash”
Michael O'Leary summarises Ryanair's opinion of you
Imagine, if you will, a family wedding. In amongst all of the guests, the mothers and grandfathers and children and friends, you always have that one person who has to be invited but whom no one else can stand. The greasy, sleazy cousin who farts through the service, uses his fingers to eat the chicken, gets drunk, starts a fight with the best man, and ends up drooling over the boss-eyed bridesmaid who can’t handle her champagne.
Know who I mean? Good. Now imagine this man’s less appealing little half-brother, who is on his way to collecting ASBOs in every major borough of London. You are now picturing a man who has at least twice the charm of Michael O’Leary, patron saint of shit airlines.
Michael O’Leary is a force of nature. Insanely arrogant, he actually had his car classified as a taxi in 2004 so that he could drive in the bus lanes around Dublin. He allegedly once posed as a journalist to obtain information following a safety incident on Ryanair, the airline he both runs and fronts.
Terry Smith: proving that crime minus thinking doesn’t pay
The Art of Armed Robbery
‘Dumbass’ is a rubbish word. With so many insults available to advocates of the English language, it is a word that should be buried and left for dead. ‘Idiot’, ‘ignoramus’, ‘cretin’, ‘dolt’, ‘moron’, ‘simpleton’… All of these should be more than capable of ousting the word ‘dumbass’ from common usage.
Except that, sometimes, there is no other word that so perfectly captures the essence of a person. Some people, through their own ridiculousness, are so suited to being referred as a dumbass that the word simply cannot be laid to rest, lest we start thinking of them as somehow intellectually equal to goats.
