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I am rich! I am told! – Spam E-Mails and intelligence

I am rich! I am told! – Spam E-Mails and intelligence

Last week I got an e-mail from “Barr.kalu paul” and he wrote:

HELLO DEAR,

I’m kalu paul,a lawyer in Cotonou, Benin Republic,late Mr.Joerg Slivkanich,a gold merchant who was my client, died as a result of lung cancer without a will, now I want to present your name to late Mr. Joerg,bank so the money left behind by late Mr. Joerg , can be transferred to your account through my help.The amount of U.S.$ 10.5 million deposited in a local bank here,by late Mr. Joerg before his death on November 23, 2012, I need your information so that I can show you the bank as next of kin to Late Mr.Joerg for further process.Please provide name and full address,your age, profession and position,address,email not mail.ur and mobile number for contact purposes,Please reply via personal e-mail,so I will send more details of Mr.Joerg you need to know: kaluequitychambers@gmail.com
+2296-823-8271
Thanks
Barr.kalu paul

So, there you have it! I am rich!!! 10.5mio!? Nice one! :-)

We all get these idiotic mails. The senders send thousands or hundred thousands and sending a mail doesn’t cost a cent to the sender, so if one or two naive people fall for it, they are already making a profit. But I am shocked about the poor quality of the letter. Maybe the dodgy English and punctuation is meant to make it sound authentic?

The most interesting thing is how they try to create a link to me. My name is Joerg Steegmueller and the person that died was called Joerg Slivkanich, so we MUST be related! Don’t you think!? ;-) But to be honest, it looks as if they just took the part before the @ in the e-mail address and used it with a “Mr.” in front of it. Oddly, however, not to refer to me, but to refer to the dead person who left all the money for me. Imagine my e-mail was smartass@mail.com or something like that. ;-) It would then read “now I want to present your name to late Mr. Smartass,bank”. LOL

There are really some stupid Scammers out there. ;-)

Killings in Nice and how NOT to react

Killings in Nice and how NOT to react

Once again, a mass killing shook our world. Last night somebody drove an articulated truck into a mass of people at the strand promenade in Nice and killed more than 84 people, left 200 injured and some of them still in critical condition. This is a terrible event and it really shocked us. France has declared 3 days of mourning, the USA has topped that and will mourn for the people in France for 4 days and political leaders from all over the world declare their sympathy and solidarity with the people in Nice.

Can anybody remember a similar reaction when just 12 days earlier, 0n 03 July, 292 people were killed by an ISIS truck bomb in Baghdad and 200 got injured? I didn’t read anything about state mournings in the western world. Saying this is NOT criticising France or the US about the reaction to the attack in Nice, but why is it that we measure death so dramatically different?

The driver of the truck was shot by the police, so we will never find out what really was behind this terrible act. But we learned that he rented the truck 2 days earlier and that oddly he had non-working fake guns and fake hand grenades in the back of the truck. We also hear that allegedly he shot on people while he was driving into the viewers of a 14 July fireworks on Bastille Day in Nice, but since the police shot at the truck, it remains to be seen if it was the attackers shots or the police shots that the people heard.

Well BEFORE anything was known about the driver, social media channels and comment-enabled news sites like TheJournal.ie were full of comments from people about these terrible Muslims attacking us. That was BEFORE ANYTHING was known about the attacker. We are very fast making assumptions!?

Unfortunately, however, it turned out that the attacker is indeed from Tunisia and with the name Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, we can also assume that he most likely is Muslim. But French police has confirmed that he was not known to or on the watch list of French intelligence services, but was known to the police in connection with crimes like theft and violence,

No terror organisation claimed responsibility, so it is possible that this was the act of a deranged individual, but because he is most likely Muslim, many still blame the religion.

Nothing justifies killing people but it shouldn’t matter if this is a white deranged person, a black deranged person, a Muslim deranged person, a Christian deranged person or a group of deranged people. It also doesn’t matter if this is the police in the US, who seem to be on a rampage against every black American at the moment or if it is a Tunisian who lives in Nice who indiscriminately kills harmlesss life-enjoying people on what was meant to be a nice night out.

The reaction of many people on Facebook was “when will it stop” or “where is it all going to end” and as brutal as it sounds, but the tough truth is that it will NOT stop!! Since mankind exists, innocent people have been killed by deranged people and that will continue. Does that mean we have to accept it? No! But don’t ask nonsensical questions because the answer will depress you more.

I read another comment where someone suggested that the only way to stop the world from having gone crazy is that every single country needs to close its borders to stop “crazy religious people” from doing their terrorism. The American police that is killing innocent black people or crazy people that do mass shootings in Norway or the USA or anywhere else will NOT be hindered by that. A person that lives for many years in France (independent from his nationality) will also not be influenced by that. Do people even think for a second when they splurge out cr*p?

But governments are not much better it seems! The French government, who had decided to step down the “state of emergency” at the end of July has decided to continue it for another 3 month. Because ONE deranged person did a horrible thing? France also has decided to call in reserve soldiers and to increase the control of the borders. What is that for? This guy in Nice didn’t cross any border! He rented a truck in neighbouring town! How do reserve soldiers and stronger border controls help against that? A state of Emergency is TOTALLY and utterly in effective against this type of attack.

So why do countries things like that? Because they are as helpless as everybody else (but they need to be seen to do SOMETHING). The bottom line is that there is NO defence against attacks of that kind. And while this is a truly tough fact to accept, there is no other option than to accept it.

Is there ANY chance to stop it? It will sound VERY hippy, but the ONLY way to stop attacks and conflicts and killings and terrorism is with LOVE. Very hippy, I know! But only love and acceptance and showing that nothing will be achieved with force and killing has the slightest chance to stop madness.

Waking up to a different world! Brexit and democracy!

Waking up to a different world! Brexit and democracy!

“On Friday 24 June 2016 the world changed…” could be a line in history books of the future about what happened last night, After a very divisive and extremely negative campaign, the UK voted in a referendum against remaining in the EU and for leaving it. And this shook the world! I stayed up for a large part of the night because I was working on the “Dublin Event Guide” and I saw it happening. Tiny margins, swinging between Leave and Remain and Leave again and Remain again and then LEAVE.

I have to admit that I am shocked about the result! I am shocked about the narrowmindedness of the 17mio British people who voted “Leave”. I am shocked about the fact that the FEAR campaign and the campaign of intolerance, of arrogance, ignorance and superiority complex (“Make Great Britain great again”) won. I think – and there is no sitting on the fence for this one – it was a totally stupid and hugely damaging decision by the UK, but there is also another side.

First of all, democracy is good and democracy means that nonsensical decisions also have to be accepted. Like it or not, we have to live with it.

The other aspect is that Britain has always been a trouble maker in the EU. And now the unruly, obnoxious and difficult child on the play ground, just decided in a huff to walk away from the other kids that tried to find a way to play with each other on that play ground for a long time. Yes, the unruly kid took some toys away when he left, but on balance, I think the nice kids will still do better by getting rid of the trouble maker.

Scotland, and if in any way possible also Northern Ireland, might be back in the EU at some stage and if people in London could, they would also leave the UK,. Interesting scenario! The United Kingdom became the Divided Kingdom over night and the damage this referendum did to the British population will probably not be healed for decades.

What does it mean for Ireland? There could be a lot of good in that development for Ireland! American companies that want to open offices in the EU will NOT choose the UK anymore and companies that are already in the UK might relocate to Ireland.

The development is shocking, but let’s face it, we live in a time when we have relatively little upsets to deal with, so in that context it is HUGE. But if you compare it to the years when rebellions and wars happened, it is not the biggest problem. So we will deal with it and there is a good chance that we will look back in a few years and remember the great day when the obnoxious kid left and positive calmness and co-operation returned to the play ground.

Bye by, Divided Kingdom!

BREXIT and Who are these neighbours of ours?

BREXIT and Who are these neighbours of ours?

It is less than a week until the British voters will decide if they will stay in the EU or if they will leave and while we in Ireland have no influence over the vote, it is still interesting to look at the what Britain was before the EU discussion began and what it is now.

I love the multicultural society in Ireland and if you compare it to an Ireland from the 80s, the society has changed SIGNIFICANTLY. Not for everyone, I know and you don’t have to change anyway if you don’t want to, but for the people that like variety, they can find events from all different countries and cultural backgrounds in Dublin.

But whenever I was in the UK in the past, I was always puzzled that the UK was soooo much more multicultural and that all seems to be working quite well in the society. There are Indians&Pakistani, Africans, Asians and Caucasians and a lot more in close proximity and nobody seemed to mind in the slightest.

The favourite national dish seems to be Indian, Italians are in charge of the previous national dish: Fish & Chips and they brought Coffee and Ice Cream, Jamaicans provide the music and had a sizeable influence on youth culture in the 60s and 70s were hugely important, Black people seemed better integrated than in most other countries. All in all, it just seemed as if Britain endorsed their colonial past by accepting all different cultures in and giving them the same opportunities. I know that Irish people had to deal with a lot of subliminal or even open racism at some point, but it seemed to me that this had improved a lot as well.

Please note: No formal research went into this, it was just an impression!!

But then the Brexit discussion happened! And the “new” Britain seems to be divisive, intolerant, selfish, excluding, “we are better than they”, confrontational , bullying and Anti-European or even Anti-International. What happened??

Imagine you had a nice, friendly and tolerant neighbour who over night became an intolerant, antisocial bully. You would probably not WANT to have anything to do with the bully anymore, right? So, if the majority of British people decides for leaving the EU, I think we should be glad that they are gone and we should treat them like you would treat the anti-social bully neighbour.

By the way: I don’t think the EU is perfect and we should be grateful for all it does, BUT I do think that Ireland and many other countries have and still do benefit hugely from the EU. I also am a strong believer in co-operation and “strength in numbers” instead of doing it on your own and I think that improving the EU from the inside is the right approach. So, Brexit supporters, I don’t understand you at all!

 

First find a woman then start your drink driving ban – Legal System in Ireland

First find a woman then start your drink driving ban – Legal System in Ireland

The legal system in Ireland, of which judges are a cornerstone, keeps puzzling me. I haven’t checked yet how judges are chosen, but whoever does the choosing must be some odd ball or alternatively these judges become odd balls themselves only AFTER they are appointed.

The Irish Times reported about the case of a bachelor farmer in County Kerry and the Irish Examiner had a slightly different interpretation of the story. The guy is called John O’Shea and he is 60 years of age. In July 2014 he went from Mastergeeha to Waterville (approx. 9km) to get food for his cows and drank too much when discussing football. On the way home, he drove into a ditch and was found to have nearly four (!!) times the legal alcohol limit in his blood (198mg). The penalty for that will be a a 3-year driving ban and luckily, the judge didn’t indicate that he plans to deviate from that.

The solicitor asked for the driving ban to be delayed until after the summer and here starts the oddness. It seems that the solicitor asked for the delay so that the farmer can look after the cows, but the judge seemed to have suggested the 60 year old never-married farmer should find a “nice woman” that will drive him around and – possibly seeing the opportunity – the solicitor quickly suggested that he could go to Lisdoonvarna to the matchmaking festival if he still had a car for the summer.

It seems that there is a lot of stupid-talk in court rooms in Ireland and it also could be that the solicitor just saw the opportunity that the judge provided and jumped on it without having planned to go for the “find a woman” reason for the delay.

But it really makes you wonder about the ability of Irish judges to do their job. This farmer had FOUR times the amount of alcohol in himself than he should have, so he didn’t just drink a little bit more than he knew he should have, but he filled himself up. Luckily nobody got hurt, but is it really the right message a judge should send??

Odd!!

 
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