Magic Statistics

The phishing scam was apparently getting stale, so would-be spammers have developed a new tactic: hitman spam.

Don't be fooled if you receive an e-mail from a professional hitman who says that he is willing to spare your life for a price - he's actually just a spammer hoping to get lucky.

The internet security firm Sophos gave warning today about the latest 'death threat spam' scam in which potential victims are told that they have a $50,000 contract on their lives.

The e-mail, in less-than-perfect English, claims that the recipient has been stalked by a hired assassin for the past ten days but the hitman is prepared to drop the contract if he is paid a total of $80,000. After a down payment of $20,000 he will provide taped evidence of the contract.
. . .
The e-mail, from an Irish Yahoo address, starts with a cheery greeting of 'Good day', ends "Lucky You" and usually has the subject line "Read this to be safe and a new life in this new year".

The hitman e-mail contains no links; you inform the sender you’re willing to be extorted by replying as you would to any regular e-mail.

A work by one of the world’s greatest and most prolific sculptors has been donated to the Art Gallery of Ontario.  Gian Lorenzo Bernini cast the five-foot, six-inch bronze Corpus around 1650 for his personal collection.  After Bernini’s death, it was misattributed to a lesser artist and lost track of.

Following a two-year search, Toronto real estate developer and art collector Murray Frum acquired the piece, valued at C$50 million, from a private collector in the US.

After two years of intrigue, long negotiations and scholarly sleuthing, the Art Gallery of Ontario has landed a spectacular prize: a full-length, life-size crucifixion sculpture by the Italian Old Master Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

This rare baroque treasure, called Corpus is a gift of the Frum family.

Cast in 1650, it's said to be worth $50 million in the current art market.

Bernini, generally considered the greatest sculptor of the 17th century, created it for himself and held onto it for 25 years.

"It's so overwhelming, you just have to sit down after you see it," says Murray Frum, the Toronto developer and AGO board member who bought the piece from a U.S. dealer after pursuing it for two years, then turned it over to the AGO as a gift from his family.

Bernini is also renowned as an architect.  He worked on many Italian churches, particularly St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, and some of Rome’s most popular fountains.

Corpus is expected to go on public view at the AGO this summer.

It’s bad enough that Liberal leader and aspiring Prime Minister Stephane Dion insulted oil-sands workers while on a bad-will good-will tour of Alberta.

“All these workers living too fast for the easy money in the north,” the prime minister-wannabe blasted as Liberal-appointed senators Tommy Banks and Grant Mitchell looked on.

That provoked a scathing response from Edmonton Sun columnist Neil Waugh.

I don’t know what your idea of “easy money” is. But it sure isn’t living in camp and freezing your butt at 40 below building oilsands plants. But Tommy and Grant sure know what a soft touch looks like.

Darcey at Dust my Broom, who's done some hard time in the oil patch, has two words for Mr Dion: “F*** off”.

As I said, that’s bad enough—but what’s even worse, in my view, is Stephane’s ignorant dismissal of the economic value of those jobs.

“All these workers living too fast for the easy money in the north,” . . . “It’s not good for the economy.”

He apparently knows nothing at all about economics.  Of course, more high-paying jobs are great for the economy.  The employment created by the oil sands is probably the biggest single reason why Alberta has, according to Statistics Canada, the fastest-growing economy ever seen in Canadian history.  The world-class business newspaper Financial Times called the oil sands North America’s “biggest resource boom since 1898”.

Alberta’s unprecedented boom may be causing problems for other areas of Canada, however.  Workers are moving to Alberta from eastern Canada, draining productive workers while boosting wages for many of those who stay behind.  Quebec’s economy was struggling well before Alberta’s latest boom (but that’s Quebec’s own fault).  Ontario seems to be slipping into recession.

So, one could argue that Alberta’s sustained strong growth is bad news for the economies of eastern provinces.  Maybe that’s what Stephane Dion really meant.  But it’s probably not a politically astute idea to say that in Alberta.  Save it for Ontario and Quebec.

h/t: Darcey at Dust My Broom

Previous related posts:

• Alberta’s economy strongest ever in Canadian history
• BC and Alberta to form united economic powerhouse

This was so predictable.  China implemented a one-child per couple policy in 1973.  Given the economic advantage of and social/cultural preference for male children—effected through sex-selection abortions—it was widely foreseen that China would have a severe shortage of young women.  In 2005 and 2006, far more men than women reached marriageable age.  Chinese demographers fear social instability and conflict may increase as a result.

China will have 30 million more men of marriageable age than women by 2020, making it difficult for them to find wives, according to a national report.

The gender imbalance could lead to social instability, the report by the State Population and Family Planning Commission warned.

It found that around 118 boys were born to every 100 girls in 2005.

A traditional preference for boys, in a country with a one-child policy, is the root of the problem, the report says.

The report tries to look on the bright side, but it doesn’t really work.

The silver lining is that "for a long time to come, China will not be short of manpower", it [the report] said. There were 860 million Chinese of working age between 15 and 64 in 2000, and the number will reach 1.01 billion in 2016, which is "more than the total number of working age people in all the developed countries".

Hoorah for China.  But you can bet that China will also have more elderly people than the total number of elderly “in all the developed countries”.  The thing is: Workers in all the developed countries won’t be supporting Chinese old folks; it’ll be Chinese workers.

Previous related posts:

• Blowback from China’s one-child policy
• Global war against baby girls
• Low-income countries are aging, too

UPDATE (18 Jan.): Wang Guangzhou left a comment saying the newspaper did not report his comments correctly. I have removed the quotation from the post.