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Behind The "Work-At-Home" Street Spam Signs
Sabalon writes: "If you live almost anywhere in the U.S. then you have probably seen tons of the 'Make thousands working at home' signs tacked up almost everywhere. Cockeyed.com has an interesting story of one persons quest to uncover the source behind all this money just waiting to be made, the company behind it (or not behind it for legal reasons), and an oversaturated market." Spam, just another medium.
fprost! foasih!
I am typing so fast! WOO! 20 second delay? What delay?
slashdotted already.
It's a twisted pyramid scheme
Logins drool!
Suck my big fat cock.
Quick, stop frits! He's running away with our sauce code!
In other news, Emad sucks cock.
What? No mirrors?
booo yaaa!
fp?
no
acs rile
Ok, no posts yet, site is already /.'ed. Is this thing running off the GBA webserver or something?
yo
FIRST POST!
You're a total idiot. What host is 'bowser'?
That sounds like another European standard Turkey fails to meet. Turkey should not be allowed in the EU until they start washing their hands properly and covering their mouths when sneezing or coughing.
gee..., probably a local one for him.
since when did mistake = = total idiot?
I give him credit, he got a mirror up in like 3 minutes.
Yeah, taking something down because you don't like the message is really cool. Why don't you go burn some books afterwords to complete the day?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Turkey should not be allowed in the EU until they start washing their hands properly and covering their mouths when sneezing or coughing.
That woudn't be fair. France is already in the EU.
Gah. You people are getting trickier with the goatse links. Glad the boss didn't see.
Frank Zappa once said Most rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read
Seems like most of /. is people who can't right, posting stories by people who can't wright for people who can't rite.
typos intentional, btw ;)
-AC=Anal Coward
Even funnier, he got modded up even though the link doesn't work. How can they see the moderator dialog through the haze of crack smoke?
Heh, sad. As soon as I saw the url but before I ran it in my browser, the first thing I did was type "nslookup goatse.cx". Then I see "nslookup www.google.com" yields an ip very close, go guess its not a goatse.cx link
Not OD'ed. He simply suffered a HerbaDeath.
And here ***I*** was, trying to karma whore, and here you get the fucking mod points :-)
Good job.
Or maybe someone just has a "W" fixation.
overdosed. took too many drugs.
Uhhhh....hello mods? I have had some brilliantly insightful posts modded -1: Flamebait and this gets modded up to 2? Get with it! Not even a witty troll...
Why does everyone hate Turk? turk can be nice but if you cross us... just look at armenian, greek, Kurds, it is not good to be on wrong side of turk.
please stop anti turk propaganda. we hands wash
If anyone in France did shit like that, the French would pussified to stop it.
Is your mom ashamed of the fact that she doesn't make an honest living?
I would rather have Slashdot cache any pages that are linked to before the links are made public on the main page.
He didn't get modded up he used his plus one bonus.
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
While it might be nice for Slashdot to cache pages, there are copyright issues with doing that. Many sites would prefer people visit the real site (so as to preserve advertising revenue, preserve brand identity, and such).
Also, Slashdot has enough trouble keeping up with its own bandwidth requirements.
Is your mom ashamed of the fact that she doesn't make an honest living?
Probably not. She probably brags to her idiot friends and/or strangers about it (just like her brilliant son here).
You people are scum.
Congratulations. Now do this another 999 times (oh, and from a unique IP each time) and you'll cost them five dollars! That'll learn 'em.
-diaperboy
Why, you know one I missed?
There is a Shell gas station near Manassas, VA that has a big sign on the roof that used to have the 'S' burned out leaving only "HELL". If always cracked me up because it was a fairly acurate description of Manassas.
I hit some little punk kid the other day. Also, the last time I was at Disneyland, I knocked a shitload of them on their asses. The March of Dimes is shite. Read about it here Here's some Examples Experimenters funded by the March of Dimes have:
sewn shut newborn kittens' eyes, then killed them after they had endured a year of blindness.
put newborn kittens in completely dark chambers, then killed them after three to five months.
removed fetal kittens from the uterus, implanted pumps into their backs to inject a drug that destroys nerves, then re-implanted the fetuses in the uterus. After the kittens were born, they were killed and studied.
implanted electric pumps into the backs of pregnant rats to inject nicotine, even though the dangers of cigarette smoking to human babies is already known.
injected pregnant rats with cocaine, though the dangers of cocaine to human babies is already known.
injected newborn opossums with alcohol, decapitated them an hour to 32 weeks later, then removed and studied the gonads (immature sexual organs), though the dangers of alcohol to human babies is well known.
transplanted organs from pigs to baboons, most of whom died within hours.
transplanted organs from guinea pigs to rats.
I just travelled to France, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. Of the four capitols, Istanbul was the cleanest by far--I didn't step in dogshit once the whole time I was there.
Covering the mouth while sneezing/coughing is merely cosmetic. Scientists are now blaming our (America's) obsession with antibacterial soaps for the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. Meanwhile Turks have a very high life expectancy.
Don't forget that the purpose of the State Department's travel advisory website is to sensationalize trivial non-issues so that the average American soccer mom is grateful for being "protected" from the horrible health habits of those dirty third-world Turks. Thus another useless bureaucracy is perpetuated.
The addition of Turkey to the EU will do nothing but benefit the EU. The Turks have a wonderful work ethic, a staggering network of networks of ethical business proprietors, and a purposeful optimism.
efuck you.
Is that his mom in the bikini? Does she do anal?
or cut the W out, flip it 180 degrees, and reapply. Mork from home!
Nah, I'd do something more honest like selling body parts (not MY body parts!) or giving blow jobs for money on Santa Monica Blvd.
Hey, it's not your opinion that counts. It's the mod's.
Too big to fail? Does that make me to small to succeed?
Oh, so that makes the lies she tells to her marks below her in the scheme okay? As you've correctly surmised, pyramid schemes work best if you're in early, but the pyramid *does* collapse, and people *are* defrauded, and using the internet to commit pyramid schemes *is* a felony.
Nice to know lynching is still popular... Keep the redneck image alive!
Say, didn't I see you at the local Amway meeting?
Too bad that picture from the website isn't Julie.
g
http://www.herbal-attitude.com/images/julie1.jp
Wow, forget Natalie Portman! What we all really want is a piece of Julie Strunk (julie@HERBAL-ATTITUDE.COM), residing at 2666 Jackson Pike Batavia, OH 45103 (according to the Post below).
Naked and Petrified would be acceptable. Preferably in a tub of hot grits.
I'll take three ears and a blowjob, please.
WTF? Fuck off spammer
Simpsons, from the Lord of the Flies episode.
How a Turkish family business partnered with Motorola and Nokia--and left the telecoms holding a $2.7 billion bag.
h tml
Seeking an entry point into the Turkish market at the height of the telecom frenzy of 1999, it was inevitable that Motorola and Nokia would run into the Uzans. In the past two decades Uzan, 67, and sons Uzan, 42, and Uzan, 34, have built a small family construction business into a giant private holding company with interests in everything from energy to pay TV. They've built their $1.3 billion fortune by fighting government monopolies and social ostracism. Capitalists to the core, they seemed to personify a new Turkey.
And, apparently, some of the notorious old. The clan has been slapped with a lawsuit in federal court, Southern District of New York, alleging that they fleeced the two telecom giants "through an elaborate scheme of deceit and intimidation" out of $2.7 billion in cash and equipment. The lawsuit was motivated by fears that the Uzans never intended to repay loans and were plotting to dilute the collateral behind the debt: shares in Telsim, a Turkish mobile phone operator, which the Uzans control.
If Motorola (nyse: MOT - news - people) and Nokia (nyse: NOK - news - people) had studied the rise of the Uzan empire, a labyrinth of at least 137 entities in nine countries, they might have trod warily to begin with. Instead, they ended up on the short end of what could be the largest loss ever in a telecom-vendor financing deal. The scandal even threatened to become an international incident. In January President Bush raised the issue with the visiting Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit.
The Uzans, who joined the ranks of FORBES Billionaires in 2001, have a contentious history. In Turkish courts they are involved in more than 100 criminal and civil cases, with allegations ranging from money laundering to libel. The attorney general of Turkey's Adana region calls the Uzans' ownership of power plants (which produce 4% of the country's electricity) a threat to national security, and wants to put the family in jail.
As power brokers go, this family has unusually hardscrabble beginnings. The Uzans are descended from farmers who immigrated to Turkey from Sarajevo around 1910. Kemal Uzan, a civil engineer, was the first to make a mark in business, founding a construction company in 1956. He landed lucrative contracts for soccer stadiums in the 1960s and dams in the 1970s and 1980s, thanks in part to a cozy relationship with the Turkish prime minister (and later president) Ozal. In 1984 Kemal Uzan bought Imar Bank for $21 million. A year later he founded Adabank.
The banks provided Cem Uzan with an entrée into the family enterprises, at age 24, after graduating with a degree in business from Pepperdine University. By the time he was 30 he proved his prowess by slyly overcoming Turkish laws preventing private transmission of TV signals: Working with Turgot Ozal's son, he rented studios in Germany and beamed the signal via satellite. Cem called it Star TV, and a year later introduced radio stations; he started a newspaper under the same brand in 1999. Presto--a media empire.
Don't cross a family that buys ink by the barrel. In 1999 the Uzans' Star printed a story accusing Turkish dairy product producer Sutas of selling cheese contaminated with excrement and mold. Sutas denied the charge and claimed the story was published only after Sutas rejected the Uzans' plea to stop advertising in competing publications. More recently the government took one of the Uzans' radio stations off the the air for seven days in August after it broadcast a private conversation between two executives of a rival media company chatting on Telsim mobile phones about backing out of an important deal.
The family made enemies here long before the Motorola contretemps. In 1989, three years after the opening of Istanbul's bourse, Franklin Templeton's Emerging Markets Fund invested in Cukurova Elektrik, a hydroelectric and gas utility firm. Shares rose from 50 cents to $3.50 a year later. In 1992 the Uzans paid $81 million for 11% of Cukurova and later tried to gain a majority stake. After they won 51% in 1993, they cleaned house, replacing the board of directors with their own nominees and placing Cukurova's cash balances in non-interest-bearing accounts at the Uzans' ImarBank. Within a year Cukurova's stock hit a new low of 18 cents and posted an $18 million loss after netting $41 million a year earlier. Templeton booked a $15 million loss.
"It was one of our worst investment experiences in emerging markets," recounts Templeton manager Mark Mobius. Turkey's Capital Markets Board alleges the Uzans' moves amounted to fraud, but suits filed by the board in 1995 stemming from this episode remain tied up in Turkish courts. The Uzans deny any wrongdoing. Says Cem: "Mobius is just mad that we got 51% without him. In business there is no room for emotion."
The Templeton conflict erupted the same year as a privatization drive in telecommunications. The government gave the Uzans permission to provide cellular phone service via Telsim. But they needed lots of cash and equipment. As early as 1994 Telsim borrowed $52 million in services from Motorola. By 1998 Cem, who ran the business with his younger brother Hakan, needed upwards of $500 million to acquire Turkey's second cellular license. Motorola advanced $200 million. Subsequent financing of Motorola's cellular infrastructure and equipment to Telsim ballooned the tab to $1.8 billion by September 2000--and $2.3 billion by March 2001. Motorola hoped to reap a windfall in handset sales, as the number of cell phone users in Turkey jumped from 1.7 million in April 1998 to 14 million in August 2000. Nokia chipped in $800 million-plus in the form of network switching equipment and services and cash. As collateral for the loans the Uzans pledged 66% of Telsim's shares to Motorola and 7.5% to Nokia.
It didn't take long for the loans to go bad. Turkey's double-barreled economic crisis--high interest rates and a 50% devaluation of the lira--caused Telsim to miss a $728 million installment to Motorola due in April 2001. The cellular company told Nokia it couldn't make any payments on $240 million owed because of the plunge in the lira.
Motorola and Nokia refused to renegotiate payment terms but found themselves in a bind. The shares of Telsim pledged to Motorola and Nokia did not include any voting rights. Seizing the security would have been problematic because foreigners are not permitted to run a telecom company in Turkey, and the Uzans showed no willingness to sell control to another Turkish owner.
A further knot. The vendor-financing contracts called for the settling of disputes before Swiss arbitrators. Motorola and Nokia bypassed that agreement by declaring the loan in default. Telsim interpreted that move as an anticipatory breach of contract, thus voiding a ban on any issuance of additional shares. In April 2001 Telsim raised $17 million in an offering that tripled the share base, diluting Motorola's stake to 22% and Nokia's to 2.5%.
The equipment providers were incensed but loathe to tell the world about the disaster. Filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission (Nokia trades as an ADR on the NYSE) did not disclose the problem of lending 100% of the purchase price of equipment to a company as tiny as Telsim, or the lack of any personal guarantees from the Uzans. In April 2001 Motorola reported in its 10-Q that Telsim was late on a $728 million cash payment which, it claimed, was a breach of contract.
Strange, then, that in their suit against the Uzans neither Nokia nor Motorola mentions breach of contract. Instead, they are charging 13 counts, including fraud and RICO, typically more difficult to prove. Why take this tack? A Motorola spokesman offers this: "We're the bigger fools, and we got scammed." The telecoms are evidently hoping to condemn the Uzans in court by dredging up their controversial past.
The Uzans reportedly offered to pay 10 cents on the dollar to settle the debt. No dice. Cem Uzan unapologetically says the suit "is just a smear campaign."
In any event, the family is hardly going into hiding. One of Cem's kids still goes to private school in New York City, where he maintains a $6 million Park Avenue apartment (one of at least five multimillion-dollar Uzan properties in Manhattan). He seems immune to his legal problems. "It's difficult to be understood when you are surrounded by jealousy," he says. Father and sons still shuttle from Turkey to Europe in a private jet or a Sikorsky helicopter. A year ago Cem dined at Buckingham Palace at a charity event for Prince Charles. Uzan père calls the shots from Geneva; Hakan leads a quieter life in Istanbul.
They can't completely ignore their troubles. The Uzans may elude the grasp of Motorola and Nokia. But to continue to enjoy their four yachts and their private island off the coast of Turkey, they must turn Telsim around or sell it for a tidy sum. Deutsche Telekom once offered them at least $5 billion for it. Now they'd be lucky to get $1 billion.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0318/086_print.
Knowledge Is Power. Arm Yourself!
"45 months in prison for listening to Kurdish Music"
by Serdar Alyamac
April 11/TDN
While Kurdish broadcasting is constantly featuring in the news in
Turkey, an event in Diyarbakir has brought a different dimension to the
issue. Sulhattin Onen, a minibus driver transferring passengers from
Diyarbakir to the Cinar district of the city, has been sentenced to 45
months in prison for listening to Kurdish music in his minibus.
Sedat Yurtdas, the lawyer of Sulhattin Onen, talking to the Turkish
Daily News, quoted the story of Onen. "In 1999, Onen bought a Kurdish
music cassette, which was not prohibited and had a legal tax label, on
the side of the road in Diyarbakir, while returning to Cinar he played
the cassette. During his trip, a Gendarmerie sergeant dressed in
civilian clothes heard Kurdish music and stopped the minibus at the
first checkpoint on the highway, and the Gendarmerie later wrote a
report about Onen. After the report was sent to the prosecutor, Onen was
arrested and kept in custody for three days. When the case went to court
in 2000, he was sentenced to ten months in prison and fined, but the
court postponed Onen's sentence because of his clean background.
However, Onen applied to the Supreme Court in order to cancel the
verdict of the court. At this point the case turned into nightmare for
Onen, as the Supreme Court decided that Onen had been judged under the
wrong law. According to the Supreme Court, Onen should have been judged
under Article 169 of the Penal Code, and Onen, who had only listened to
Kurdish music, was accused of assisting the Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK), and was sentenced to 45 months in prison," Yurtdas said.
The cassette in question was by a group's cassette called "Welat ve
Zozan," and the song that had caused Onen to be punished was called
"Sozu Feleki" (The promise of destiny). The cassette is not prohibited
and is published by the Aydin Record Co.
Kurdish broadcasting and education are major issues in Turkey's attempts
in its National Program to adapt to the EU accession crireria. In this
respect, such an event has been seen to be very unusual while the
government is prepared to broadcast Kurdish on national TV.
Yurtdas said: "It is difficult to understand this verdict. Onen only
listened to a Kurdish music cassette that can be found everywhere, but
he was sent to court accused of assisting the PKK. According to the
verdict of the court, listening to Kurdish music means assisting the
PKK. For example, if they play a Kurdish music in a cafe, the people in
that cafe have committed a crime and assisted the PKK. This verdict
makes listening to Kurdish music a crime, while Kurdish broadcasting and
education are being discussed in the frame of Turkey becoming a full
member of the EU. This verdict will cause a problem, I have tried to
explain this to the court, but they have made this verdict."
Izmir - Turkish Daily News
For those of you modding me as redundant, please note that I posted my copy of page 3 exactly 1 minute before the copy that is currently rated +5 was posted.
Lasers Controlled Games!
I get a bunch of X-Spam fields tacked on to each email that evaluate its 'spamosity'
For instance: