Tax havens immoral?
Sir – Reading that the Rolling Stones have managed to stash away their millions in offshore accounts (report, August 2), I feel compelled to write about the escalating consequences of the increasing popularity among the world’s financial elite of using such tax havens.Offshore banking has become seriously big business, with estimates that unpaid taxes could be as much as $255 billion a year – much more than the estimated $195 billion needed to halve world poverty in a decade. Offshore banking is highly unprincipled and morally indefensible.
While billions of dollars sit in virtual banks evading the taxman, millions of humans continue to die from hunger, disease, and poverty.
Benjamin Radley, Malvern, Worcs
This was a letter in the DT today. I wonder if it ever occured to the statist author that if people did not have to pay such high taxes that they would be more willing and able to give to charity. If taxes were not so high then the rich & others would be less inclined to take their money off shore and might be able to concentrate more on thinking of news way to make money and employ more citizens.
Also there is plenty of proof that tossing lots of money into areas of high poverty and disease does no good.
No sir tax havens are not immoral; it is high taxes that are immoral.
Comments are off for this postMeta search engine for sale on eBay
I just found out that is up OOZM for sale on eBay. It is a small meta search engine with strong elements of customisation for the user.. Using a unique concept for a search engine its pretty impressive. A similar meta search engine, Jux2 sold for $100,000 on eBay. A few months ago another fresh engine, digforit.com went on eBay for $25, 400.
OOZM seems to be slightly different and packed with a lot of nice tools like the live thumbnail generator and other neat new concepts. You can probably still get the engine for a good price if you hurry.
Bid for OOZM here and who knows you might be the next big thing on the internet.
M3 at GBBF
A good time was had by all at the GBBF. Ironically Wolfie and I spent some time avoiding all the people we know at last night’s session. He was there for the beer but I was there to see M3 and raise a few jars.
In keeping with the beer festival; the band had an hour break between two sets: one 45 minute and the other about an hour. The first set was made up of songs from Company of Snakes original album Burst their Bubble. I have to admit that I was probably one of the few people to recognise the tracks for this release. We got to hear both Marsden and Moody do solos to show off their amazing guitar skills. Neil Murray was his normal stoic self as he gave them the awesome bottom line Whitesnake blues needs.
Jimmy Copley did the job on drums who has done time with Paul Rodger’s & Tony Iommi’s band and on keyboards Mark Stanway (Magnum, Grand Slam) showed why he is so respected. Speaking of respect; a young lad asked me if they were a cover band. I had to explain the band’s origins. He was impressed with their skill and really liked the band.
The second set was 100% vintage Whitesnake with ‘Slow & Easy’, ‘Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City,’ ‘Crying in the Rain’ and cracking finale ‘Here I go Again’ amongst others. I, like quite a few others in the crowd, sang along with every word. My only gripe with Stefan Bergrren who handles the vocals is that he does not seem to have the low-end that Coverdale has with his vocals. He handles the high stuff fine but does not do the bottem end as well.
In the end it was the perfect band for a night of real ale drinking. Most people went for the beer and got to see a cracking band. I went to see a band and got to drink some damn good beer.
Read more Comments are off for this postWine online?
If you want cheap wine that is good for every day use then A Case of Wine.com would be a good port of call for those of you based in the UK. The site gives a chance to get your wine for less but without having to worry about quality. Certainly more fun than bi-weekly trip to Threshers.
AJScreenSaver
I’ve been on the Internet for about ten years now, and I’ve developed fairly good instincts about what’s safe and what’s not. For instance, chat rooms are very dangerous. Not because the nubile 14-year-old girl you’re attempting to woo is in fact a grizzled undercover cop named “Al.” No, the true hazard is that you might accidentally encounter a 14-year-old girl:
OMG! OMG! R U 4 reel!!!! :):):)
Et cetera. So my advice is to skip chat rooms.
I rarely recommend downloads, at least not of popular stuff. Screensavers, icons and wallpapers from commercial sites are often buggy with spy-and-adware.* One study found that 80% of sports screensavers from one site were infested with it.
One exception I’ll make is when it comes from a site identified with one person, who puts, in effect, her personal guarantee on the program’s integrity. Such would be AJScreenSaver. It’s a very nice collection of 14 different clock designs, such as the one pictured, designed by Charles Salim.
You can get many more safe, free screensavers here. (Note: Only the screensavers on the site itself are screened for viruses, spyware, etc. They can’t vouch for any programs appearing in banner ads.)
*If you’re not clear on what spyware is, this Wikipedia article should get you up to speed. Spyware isn’t inherently destructive, though it can drain your system resources and slow your computer down if you have too much of it running.
It’s a good idea to periodically scan your computer. Two of the best freeware programs to check for it are Ad-Aware (download Ad-Aware Personal from the left sidebar or from here) and SpyBot.
Some file-exchange programs like Kazaa and Limewire won’t function if you remove their included spyware. You can quarantine individual spyware components until you determine they aren’t needed for other software to work, at which time you can remove them entirely.
Comments are off for this postSan Fran and San Diego car rental site…
If you are a student or a younger traveller heading West then San Diego and San Francisco Car Rental could be a good place to start. They offer airport car rental for the students and the younger traveller. I can remember it was a pain to rent a car when I was younger. Each different car company had a different age you were able to rent the car. Some of those car companies were that forthcoming about what that age was when you were booking and others attempted to force their insurance cover on you. Its great to see such a service available; I wish it were around when I was younger.
