What A Surprise!

This story from the BBC web site doesn’t affect me, as I only drink the odd bottle of what is best described as a properly made gluten-free beer like Celia.  Here’s the first couple of paragraphs.

Beer drinkers in the US have filed a $5m (£3.3m) lawsuit accusing Anheuser-Busch of watering down its beer.

The lawsuits, filed in Pennsylvania, California and other states, claim consumers have been cheated out of the alcohol content stated on beer labels.

The suit involves 10 Anheuser-Busch beers including Budweiser and Michelob.

It certainly reminds me of that joke about that terrible beer of the 1960s, Watney’s Red Barrel.

Why is drinking Watney’s Red Barrel, like having sex in a punt? They’re both f**king close to water.

Although, I suspect the joke has been updated several times since.

The Danger Of Religious Fraud

This story is running on BBC’s London News. This is the first part.

TV shows made in London that encourage viewers to believe they are cured of life-threatening illnesses by prayer have been condemned by charities.

Charities criticised an episode of the Miracle Hour show, on Faith World TV, during which a diabetic caller was told he was “set free” from the disease.

“It is particularly dangerous and puts his life at risk,” said African Health Policy Network head Francis Kaikumba.

It strikes me that when people like these make dangerous television programs like this, that the law should get involved.

At least they should be charged with fraud, as that is what it is!

When Did We First Test For Horse DNA In Beef?

This may seem to be an obvious question, but I can’t seem to be able to find the answer on the Internet.

There is also the related question of when were we able to test for equine DNA in beef?

After all, if we’ve been able to do this for some years, could we have detected the fact that crooks were putting horse in beef earlier? And then there’s how long has it all been going on?

Perhaps, we should ask people if they find a Findus beef lasagne or any of the other suspect products  in the freezer with a date of last year, they should take it to get tested.

Fraudsters Are Targeting Wonga Customers

I have never used Wonga and I never will, but I received this e-mail supposedly from them this morning.

Customer Satisfaction Survey 2013

At Wonga.com, we sincerely value your opinions.
As part of our continuous improvement process, we’re conducting a survey to benchmark the opinions of our customers.

We will use the resulting information to better serve the needs of our customers.

We kindly ask you to take part in our quick and easy 3 questions customer survey. In return, we won’t charge you ANY INTEREST on your next loan application!

Here is how you proceed:
• Download your personal survey attached to this email.
• Select the desired answers on your survey.
• Log in to your Wonga.com account to validate your survey.
We thank you in advance for your time and effort in making Wonga the best payday lender in the United Kingdom.

Sincerely,
Wonga.com Customer Service
Message ID:

I wasn’t sure if it was phishing spam or something from the company, which has used one of my e-mail addresses.

So I did what you should always do with this type of message and used Google to search for “Wonga 2013 2013 customer satisfaction survey”

I found this page. So it’s a phish and of course fraudulent!

In some ways it’s rather ironic, that a rather dodgy company in my view, is being used as a hook by criminals to get mugs for their frauds.

A Cautionary Tale

I don’t mess about with hardware and although, I could probably do quite complicated work on PCs at one time, I couldn’t now, as my knowledge is way out of date.

But this tale from the BBCs web site, shows how you might fall into all sorts of security holes if you do.

Their technology correspondent changed the motherboard on his home PC and consequently, the various security systems thought he was committing credit card fraud, as the computer address had changed.

Now he, thought he knew what he was doing.  He did hardware-wise, but he got caught out, by intelligent checking software on the Internet.

when I feel, one of machines is getting to the end of it’s life, I buy another machine and gradually swap everything over, still doing most of the work on the old machine.

So whhen it dies, I just move the last update over and put the old machine in the bin.

The Telegraph Attacks Two Targets In One Article

Toby Young in Her Majesty’s Daily Telegraph has attacked both Lance Armstrong and Alistair Campbell in this article.

It is getting that Lance Armstrong is becoming a non-laurel wreath to hang around anybody you don’t like’s neck.

Manly Library Classifies Armstrong’s Books As Fiction

This story is a classic Australian put-down for sports worst cheat.

So it’s only a hoax, but everybody got the joke.

Hugh McIlvanney Calls Lance Armstrong A Conman

In a well-reasoned piece in The Sunday Times, Hugh McIlvanney  states his view on Armstrong.  Conman came from the title.

I wonder if Armstrong will be suing McIlvanney!

I think he won’t, as The Sunday Times already has a lot of legal issues, it needs to discuss with Armstrong. Probably in a Court of Law!

Lance Armstrong Questions His Punishment

Lance Armstrong has questioned his punishment for proven doping offences on the Oprah Winfrey show.

He actually wants to compete again.

Do they have cycling or triathlon events in prisons?

I suspect that this odious cheat, won’t give up and he’ll go to Court to get what he wants.  Let’s hope the judge who tries his case is an honest man or woman.

Ministry Of Justice Deals It Out to Claims Firms.

This article on the BBC web site, says that the Ministry of Justice has shut down 209 rogue claims firms in the last six months.

This is good news.  But I wonder how many people have been involved in more than one firm.

I also would love to see a database published of all those involved. It would be an interesting analysis.