Toad’s Chorus

A New Your toddler miraculously survived a fall from a third floor window. Official say the two and a half year only came away with just a few cuts and bruises, but was taken to hospital for observation. He did not suffer any broken bones.

The boy fell out of an apartment building in the Bronx on Saturday. Plummets

At this point, police do not consider there to be any suspicious circumstances, stating it appears to be purely accidental.

Tarantula

“That makes me feel good when I hear that. I love this job. It’s a fantastic job,” says Chuck Kristensen of Arizona.

He has been working in the hills of Yarnell, located a couple of hours northwest of Phoenix, for 30 years. For most people, hunting down scorpions and spiders, as well as a range of other venom carriers would not be the ideal job.  For Kristensen, it’s a fulfilling job. “I can actually milk the venom and sell it to medical research companies,” he said.

The job can be tedious, having to capture the creatures, often with bare hands, and placing a small tube on their fangs or stingers. They then need a small shock to get them to release their venom. It’s not a quick job however.

“Sometimes we have to milk 10,000 spiders just to get enough venom for one order,” he said.

The venom milked from these critters had become extremely valuable in medical research.

Rogue art dealer Ron Coles has now got a lot more to worry about.

After entering into a deal, promising to sell artworks for cash creating a simple but effective money laundering scheme.  However, after his disappearing act, the artwork is nowhere to be found, nor is the large sums of cash the bikers handed over.

Stealing a million dollars from criminals will most likely end up outting Coles to an early grave.

Coles is likely to have more concern about the bikers on his tail than the overstretched law enforcement officials who have pretty much said they are too busy to track him down. The bikers however will not stop until he is found, and “taken for a little ride”.

Coles has been playing a game of cat-and-mouse with an angry hoard of investors for months.  It is now a race for who will get to him first.

People are very strange. On one side you have those that trust no one, then you have the victims like those Ron Coles has defrauded.

Coles’s Kenthurst gallery barely covered a third of the money owed to ANZ back, reaching AU$1.32 million at auction on Friday. ANZ won’t really like the fact, since they are owed a tidy AU$3.4 million. Someone must have checked the security value surely? Or are banks in the habit of providing that much credit without confirmation of security? Would wanring bells have gone off earlier has their processes been better?

Australian Securities and Investment Commission aren’t really interested, and have ceased their investigation, and the police are not really going to folow up unless there is proof of at least AU$500,000 in fraud.

Jirsch Sutherland, the bankruptcy trustee, had the joyful task of telling the creditors it was likely Ron Coles would get away without any criminal charges. These investors will more than likely be pretty bewildered by all of this. Particularly as the police gave the reason for withdrawing investigations as simply a lack of resources. Pretty shocking really.

A police spokesman said: “A claimant-funded civil investigation by the receiver could assist. However, the criminal investigation will now be conducted by police regardless of the outcome of the claimant-funded investigation.”

So that’s pretty much the only option for the saga to be resolved. Civil courts for what is obviously criminal activities.

As for the artwork involved, they are poping up all over the place, and as multiple people “own” them, it’s going to get very very messy.

The big question is where Ron Coles is. How long can he hide?  And just how much money did he make from his AU$30 million scheme.

Keiji Fukuda, Acting WHO Assistant Director-General, states “the virus is transmissible”.

Okay, here we are in the 21st century, and they have only really worked this out?

Countries around the world are struggling here.  This so called pandemic has caused insurmountable damage to variously economies. But people seem to have forgotten something.

In 2008, across the world, 0.1 per 1000 people were murdered.

In a city the size of Los Angeles, that would be 384937 people dead. Every year.

Now, as far as I know, we are looking at less than 1% of that being killed by the “Swine Flu” across the world before it gets contained.  Hello?

Several million dollars are being spent on this.

Why not focus on murder? 3849 versus hundreds of thousands of deaths through violent crime.  Hmmm….

Keiji Fukuda needs a reality check. I know they are just doing their job. But, maybe a focus on education (educated people are far less likely to commit a violent crime) is a better option. What will it take for society to focus on positive development of individuals, rather than punitive punishment?

Could this be the answer?  Or is Swine Flu another failed Ebola?