A wigwam for a goose’s bridle

It never fails to amaze me how gullible people can sometimes be. It is a shame I don’t have more cheek than I do, because it seems that the snake oil salesmen are having a great time these days.

For every wacko idea you can think of there seems to be somebody marketing it and selling it and for some reason they never seem to run out of suckers to buy it. Some of the schemes are downright evil and some very trusting albeit naive people get sucked in and spat out and they are often pretty knocked about by the experience. For the peddlers of such goods and services horsewhipping is too good.

However every once in a while somebody comes along with a really wacky idea that is taken up by people who should know better and I for one can’t help but chuckle at both the audacity of the vendor and the stupidity of the buyer.

One such scheme was dreamed up by a bloke called Gary Bolton. Now before I go any further I should make it clear that I think horsewhipping is also too good for Bolton because his little scheme had some catastrophic downstream effects. However he is far from the only culpable party here. Bolton’s outrageous plan could have been scuppered long before any harm was done if certain bodies including the U.K. Government and various police and military forces had done their jobs properly.

Bolton is the bloke who came up with the idea of selling bomb detectors and made over three million quid selling them to police and military clients in Mexico, Thailand, Pakistan, China, India, the Philippines, Singapore, Egypt and Tunisia. Good idea, you might think until you learn that these devices were completely bogus.

Based upon a golf ball finder the device consisted of a box with a handle and antennae attached and some pieces of plastic inside it. It was first launched in 1999 and tested by the Royal Engineers whose opinion was that was only accurate about 30 percent of the time, which of course means that the other 70 percent of the time you were likely to get blown up. In other words probably no better than guesswork at detecting bombs.

It would seem Mr Bolt-On took this assessment with a pinch of salt and a lot more twink and as a result his publicity material for his marvellous machine explained that the device worked by locking onto the atomic structure of the suspicious parcel or substance and then giving its exact location. He claimed it worked on static electricity, which would seem to me to be a rather dangerous thing to have around explosive devices (think cellphone and petrol station). Under the circumstances Bolt-On seems an appropriate name for this modern day mad inventor.

Our backyard amateur engineer also claimed his device had a range of 766 yards at ground level and 2.5 miles in the air and could penetrate lead lined and metal walls, water and earth, but not apparently the brains of certain armies, police and trade missions. Okay, I made those last couple up.

The British judiciary has just jailed Bolt-On for seven years for his fraud and it was claimed at his trial that people had lost their lives as a result of relying upon his machines, which if true is definitely not funny.

But what I can’t get over is why it took the law enforcement agencies over a decade to catch up with this bloke considering he was marketing these machines to law enforcement agencies and the military. I am also gobsmacked that the U.K. Government offered support to his enterprise and Whitehall’s sales and export division even introduced clients to him and allowed him to use their premises for demonstrations. One can only assume that he used a genuine bomb detector for these demos otherwise it is hard to see how anyone – even the police or military could be fooled. And they wonder why military intelligence is one of the best examples of an oxymoron you can find.

Let us not forget that this bloke’s clients were people who were ‘in the business’ so to speak. So how come they were so comprehensively hoodwinked and shouldn’t they all be appearing before the beak charged with criminal negligence for buying the bloody things and putting them into service? At the very least heads should roll (or be blown off) in every agency that bought them.

Mr Bolt-On was not working alone; he had a partner-in-crime called Jim McCormick who was obviously a better salesman than him and who was jailed in May this year for selling 50 million quid’s worth of the contraptions, mainly to Iraq. Expect a fatwa on that dude when he emerges from jail.

But the real punch line comes at the end as it does with every good story. Our enterprising duo was nothing if not cheeky; they were selling their devices for £15,000 each yet they only cost £1.82 each to make. 

Is this the ultimate in cynical disregard for human life or what? 

Incoming from the crazy zone

You will have noticed sites like Stuff and various print media often run a column called Crazy News or Oddstuff or something similar. In this column they show snippets about some of the more bizarre and ‘out there’ news items of the time.

However I have always believed there is nothing stranger than the truth; which for many people today – especially our politicians really is a stranger. Add to that the fact there is nothing odder than folks and we have a reality that is actually surpassed by its accompanying feel of unreality.

This week there have been several of these things, so I thought I might put together my own version of the Oddstuff type things and call it Weird Shit, which probably isn’t a name that would be all that marketable. However I think it leaves you in no doubt about what you are getting.

A very sick joke

Did you hear the joke about the paedophile comedian? Philippa Cunningham did and she’s having a huge laugh at our expense.

If somebody was to tell you that it was okay to go down on your four year-old daughter after a night on the turps if you can make people laugh; I am sure you would be quite rightly shocked and outraged. Yet this is what Auckland District Court Judge Philippa Cunningham apparently thinks. She is the stupid cow who let a ‘well-known comedian’ get away with no conviction for doing just that, despite him pleading guilty to the charge. Furthermore she has suppressed his name permanently on the pretext she was protecting his victim. The only thing sillier than Philippa in this case is the so-called comic’s claim that he mistook the four year-old’s parts for those of his wife! So not only has Philly allowed a child molester back onto the streets; but she has also allowed him to remain without a conviction and unidentified. He is perfectly able to apply for any sort of inappropriate type of employment and technically we couldn’t call this scumbag a kiddie fiddler even if we knew his name because he was never convicted.

I think this is a potentially very dangerous situation because while this lowlife might not try to become a teacher or an after school carer; there is every possibility he could end up as a kids’ entertainer. I’m guessing that most of his (probably former) colleagues will know who he is and as a result his normal work opportunities will dry up. This could ultimately see him donning a funny wig, a bulbous nose and gigantic shoes to make his living. There are enough kids scared of clowns as it is without people like him giving them a good reason.

Tales from the Brain Dead zone

Now from creepy comics we go to brain-dead government departments. Government departments are pretty comprehensively brain dead as far as most of us are concerned, but this week the prize for the most useless wastes of space must go to the Department of Labrats

Charged with monitoring our health and safety legislation they have shown themselves to be as useless as tits on a GE Bull with no calves. (That is one that just goes straight from knee to hoof)

As a direct result of their incompetence and that of the useless articles who drafted the regulations, one fireman lost his life and seven other fire-fighters suffered varying degrees of injury. This all happened in the fire at the Tamahere coolstore in 2008.

The first failure in this shambles seems to have been Mobile Refrigeration Services, the useless company that installed the equipment that had failed so many times before that fatal day. But even their shortcomings could have been overcome if the Department of Labrats had followed up after an earlier incident. It would seem that following an earlier leak of hydrocarbons at the site the company had been told to fix the problem and was issued with a temporary three month operating certificate in the meantime. That was in 2005 and NOBODY from the Department of Labrats had bothered to follow up because they don’t have a follow up procedure in place. Or a brain between them, it would seem. Of course if anybody in Government ever gave a shit about any of these things they would see to it that legislation and regulations are CAREFULLY drafted so even half-wits like those at the Dept of Labrats would know to CHECK that people have done what you have ordered them to do.

Dodgy territory

 My last item for this week is a more controversial issue. I was somewhat conflicted about it myself until I reduced it to its most basic parts. I am talking about the decision of the Serious Fraud Office to drop all charges against Allan Hubbard following his death.

On the surface it seems a reasonable enough move because: (a) the man is dead, and (b) it sounds cruel to continue given his wife’s age, injuries and obviously her grief.

However I can’t help but feel this is somehow inherently wrong. Many millions of dollars were lost in circumstances which have never been fully investigated. Whether Allan Hubbard was a fraudster or not, we will now never know. His supporters are adamant he isn’t and paint him either as some kind of affable old duffer or the messiah himself come to earth.  

Now I don’t know this man at all. But I do know a few things that are relevant here. First of all; show me a conman who is a complete arsehole that everybody hates. There is no such thing. The very nature of the beast is that they present as trustworthy and charming. So let’s forget all about appearances. But even if Hubbard wasn’t a fraudster that still doesn’t rule out the possibility he was negligent to an unacceptable degree with other people’s money and did not follow the regulations under which companies such as his are obliged to operate.

It will be very interesting to see what unfolds over the next couple of weeks on this because should any of these possibilities have been the case, then some kind of reparations would normally be due to those whose money was lost. However if we are not going to take these matters any further then the potential is for money owed to those people to pass into the Hubbard estate instead. It might sound petty, when put that starkly but I shouldn’t think it would sound so petty to anyone who has lost tens of thousands of dollars or more and has to stand by watching what money is left slipping away from them like water down the drain.

Trust me, I’m a banker

Well Bill (No Speakada) English (too good) has arisen as the slayer of the money dragons, according to his own assessment.

Old Bill (he’s about as bright as them) says he is introducing legislation to parliament to protect us from all those nasty finance companies who stole more than $8B from New Zealand investors through their sharp practices and downright lies.

Sounds like a real vote catcher doesn’t it? The trouble is; like so much of the legislation introduced to our parliament I fear it is doomed to be no more than a publicity stunt from a government desperately trying to ensure they are re-elected in four months time.

My cynicism is based not just upon my distrust of the people involved in particular and the system in general, however. Reading carefully what both JiangQi and No Speakada have said it hardly sounds like the big scary hunk of legislation it needs to be.

The first thing to note is that this Bill as opposed to the deputy PM hasn’t yet been tabled. So effectively he is referring to something that hasn’t even been written yet. Secondly I note the proposed name of the legislation would appear to be the Non-Bank Deposit Takers Bill, which implies it will not bind banks in any way. This is a worry as many of them were up to their Rolexes in the mire lately too. Why else did the government bail them out?

Another thing that bothers me about this upcoming legislation (if indeed it ever sees the light of day post election), is what we have been told about its proposed workings. No Speakada told the NZ Herald that, Under the new rules, NBDT directors will have to notify the Reserve Bank if a director or senior officer triggers new prescribed suitability criteria and the bank will have the power to remove those individuals.

Whoa now that sounds like it would work..........NOT. So we would have to rely upon directors of a Non-Bank Deposit Taker to TELL the Reserve Bank that one of their mates on their board has a dodgy past? Well that is going to happen isn’t it because they are all so very honest? In fact I don’t know why we are even proposing this legislation given that the finance company people are all such jolly good chaps.

And as if that isn’t enough; supposing one of these guys does rat on one of his mates, then the Reserve Bank will have the power to remove him. Those who read these things carefully will have already noted this is one of those conditional pieces of legislation that leaves the remedy or even enforcement entirely to the discretion of the appointed enforcer or regulator. Given this is the world of money it is not hard to imagine funds featuring as inducements to any number of people among all those involved to ‘look the other way’.

If these wallies were serious about this the law would PROHIBIT bankrupts and fraudsters from becoming involved in the finance business. Just as I wouldn’t expect a paedophile to be allowed to work in after-school care; I would have thought bankrupts and fraudsters should have no place in the finance world. Mind you it might mean a lot less people working in that particular industry, but that wouldn’t be a bad thing anyway.

No Speakada is also boasting about how they will raise the penalties for those who fail to comply with these new requirements. But even that is pathetic – ‘up to $200K for an individual and/or up to 18 months imprisonment’. You could get more for running a tinnie house!

I can’t see this idea being a fix to the problem of dodgy finance companies even if the National Disgrace Party does introduce it in the future.