Student Used Panties, Anyone?

Hey folks, do you have the habit of buying or collecting female used panties online? If you are, good news for you. a college student in Singapore is selling her used panties online for S$45 each. Perhaps this is common in well-developed countries, due to high demand. But definitely not in Malaysia and Singapore.

Well, this student is utilizing her 'brain' well, by the way she is doing online business. There was an added “bonus” for customers who buy two panties each, they will receive a free video clip of this 19 year old student taking off the lingerie but her face was not shown. It also said that she had sold 16 panties so far.

According to the news source, the girl, known only as Felicia, started her sexual fetish business last month through her blog. About 200 people left their comments on her blog. She said she ventured into the business to earn some pocket money and to pay for her tuition fees.

“All the panties will be worn by me for at least 12 hours before being sold,” she said in her blog. Felicia first sold the lingerie for SG$30 each but increased the price this month.

Felicia, however, refused to come forward for a personal interview and later decided to stop giving out the free video clips. “I cannot reveal my identity and let others know who I am,” she said.

In summary, I just don't understand why certain men have such habits of buying them. These used panties are useless for men. Of course, since I'm not the fans, I won't know how they feel. I do pay respect to personal interest.

For most of you, may be you are not interested to buy, but you are interested to know the blog URL address. Well, me too!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Wow, again, time flew like a rocket, it's Christmas, and New Year is around the corner! I believe some of you are already enjoying your Christmas celebration or on vacation now. Most importantly, we utilize these precious time to be with our families, relatives and friends. 

If you are still working in the city, perhaps you should give a call to your parents and close friends to wish them and you will be blessed definitely.

For those who don't have programme but chose to stay at home, no worry, I'm with you. Enjoy yourself with Facebook, YouTube, online movie, and of course, reading blogs. Whatever you want to do. Remember, you are not along.

Finally, may joy and happiness snow on you, may the bells jingle for you and may Santa be extra good to you. Once again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, folks!

Fight Back Or Just Give?

Today, I read a news in a local newspaper, describing that an old sundry shopkeeper trying to fight back when 2 robbers are trying to rob his cash machine around 10pm last night. 

The robbers managed to grab SG$,3000 from the shopkeeper and ran away. And the shopkeeper hands were slashed by the knife because he tried to fight back when being asked to hand out the cash. Eventually, he lost his hard-earn revenue and he cannot work for the time being due to no finger to press on the machine now.

If you were the shopkeeper, how will you react when you get rob? If you can fight like Ip Man, Bruce Lee or Jet Li, perhaps you will have no problem to fight back. You can fight up to 10 men huh! This old man is brave. Nonetheless, if the robbers are cold blood, this old man might died already.

I consider myself still lucky because I've yet to face robbery case before, touch wood. Who know, perhaps we might be facing such situation one day and we don't know what to do but panic.

I believe the logic way is calm down yourself and the robbers, give what they want while trying to buy some time to think about a better resolution. And bear in mind we can always earn back the money. The chance might be low to fight back, not worth it. 

Perhaps there are lots of better idea. When you get rob, all good ideas are gone. So be prepared.

Investing in iPhone4

I guess everyone know why many of the people like to get an iPhone4. Well, if you don't like gadget, mobile phone or follow the trend, perhaps you won't really wanting to get it. Unlike Europe, Singapore or US, getting an iPhone4 32GB cost us RM2,600 in Malaysia! What the heck, it's more or less equivalent to some people's 1 or 2 months monthly salary.

  

Yes, we can't deny that it is expensive in RM, but yet many of the people, especially youngsters are just in love with it too much. iPhone4 is being so successful because of the phone applications. They are just brilliant and too many for you to explore.

For your information, I'm using Nokia E72 and Motorola 3G 2nd grade mobile phones. I love them because their batteries are lasting long, allow me to call and sms all the time, as well as alarm me to wake up on time. That's all that I'm using my mobile phone daily. Nonetheless, I think it may necessary for me to get an iPhone4, just for the sake of keep myself update with the latest and coolest web applications in the world, and enable me to access to Internet anywhere and anytime I want. These 2 reasons should be sufficient for me to invest in iPhone4.

On the other hand, I hate to spend RM2,600 just to invest in something won't get me any return in the future and the value shrinking every day just like a car and TV. It's consider a lavish item for me, because this sum of money just enough for me to pay my utility bills for 10 months! I just feel marvel why there are a lot of people holding it around the street. Yes, I know I'm a stingy person, or I should say I live frugally. I hope 1 unit of iPhone4 drops from the sky so I don't have to buy one. So what now? I want to buy or not now?

iPhone4 currently is out of stock in my region, so there is still time for me to ponder over it further. Perhaps there won't be any price drop in the near future. The only way I can think of so far, in order to get it for free, I have to get RM2,600 from the stock market. Yes, it can be materialized if the luck is with me. Let's see.

Anyway, I think I have to ban the use of  iPhone4 or Andriod when we gather together. See what are your friends doing when you guys gathered at the coffee shop? They just concentrate on their iPhone4 and play with the phone apps! So who should I talk to if I don't have an iPhone4 to play around? Waitress?

WikiLeaks

It's good to see that WikiLeaks is back!

Wikileaks.org, the whistleblower organization's main web site, is back up in US less than 10 days after domain name service provider EveryDNS terminated the domain name, citing stability concerns. 

Due to the news from WikiLeaks are fresh, surprise and high demand, most of the local newspaper just re-published the news from WikiLeaks. If this is the case, WikiLeaks may as well setup a printing company to publish newspaper copy for sale then. This should be the lesson for the Government to be more transparent in doing things.

Anyway, I'm surprised that my country also has some interesting news from WikiLeaks.

What a WikiLeaks!

Do You Have Bad Breath?

How to tell if you have breath stinks? Well, common sense would say brush and floss your teeth regularly. Have you ever though that it might came from your tougue?

Haha, I'm not sure how true it is, as I didn't really look into it. Anyway, Orabrush, a tongue cleaner product, supposedly having a hard time due to lack of demand on last year when it is first debut. The boss has tried a lot of ideas but no to avail.

Eventually, a college student, Jeffrey Harmon is so smart that he accepted the challenge with US$1,500 reward. He has helped Orabrush to make DIY video clip and advertise it on YouTube. And he managed to make a history for Orabrush.

So how success Orabrush in YouTube? Not only it has closed to 31 millions viewers up to today, but also hit US$1 million sales within 1 year.

So is hard to earn money? Yes. Is it hard to come out with such a creative idea? Definitely. Is Harmon a lucky ass? I believe no. This success story tells us that our fate is always falls within our hand. And of course not to forget, YouTube rocks!

Mind Reading

Mind reading is interesting, especially when everyone is looking at something interesting. What do you think?

Vincent: "I wish I'm going up the staircase now."

IP Man and Bruce Lee Effect

I believe many of us are impressed with Ip Man and Bruce Lee's movies. Lately, many peopl not only feel the effect, but saw the effect on the street as well.

Perhaps you will think this teenager is watching too much Ip Man.

However, compare to this uncle, the teenager is just okay. This uncle is just too much being a Bruce lee in the train.

ADV: DiGi Discover Day Time Only Broadband

DiGi is bringing back its Discovery Day broadband plan. Just like the name, it's a broadband plan for day time use. For RM38 a month, you will get 3GB data and average speeds of 700kbps from 7am to 7pm daily. You still can use it after 7pm but speeds will be throttled to 128kbps. This plan was offered as a time limited offer during PC Fair at KL Convention Centre previously.

To save more from your monthly bill, DiGi is also giving RM5 rebate if you opt for auto-billing. This reduces your monthly subscription to a mere RM33/month.

For details, head to DiGi’s Broadband site.

Busty Larissa Dates Potential South Koreans?

Do you still remember Larissa Riquelme? This World Cup beauty is now at South Korea to meet with her potential Mr Right. The busty model shot to international fame after she was spotted watching matches in a revealing outfit with a cellphone tucked in her cleavage during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. She was cheering for her home team, Paraguay.

On last month, this 25-year-old model signed up with South Korea's matchmaking agency Sunoo, known as Couple.net, to meet her Mr Right. Without surprise, close to 1,600 men, aged between 18 and 44, answered her call. Well, I don't know why she sign up with South Korea but not other country. I'm suspecting she watched too much Korean romantic dramas and movies? Or this is just a commercial advertisement for Sunoo?

As a result, she has picked 3 candidates lately. She would go on dates with three Korean men these few days, who were selected among the thousands of applicants. Yes, all 3 of them are Koreans, even though the applicants are from different countries and majority of them are Koreans. The three lucky bastards are reportedly all at least 180cm tall and fluent in English or Spanish, and have chosen where to take Larissa on their dates. If you were one of them, how do you feel?

According to Sunoo, Larissa’s first date would be with a 27 year old employee of a conglomerate, identified by his surname Huh. Huh? During the date, they would stop at a pet dog cafe.

On Wednesday she would go to Bukchon Hanok Village near Gyeongbok Palace with a 27-year-old man with the last name Eom who works at a securities firm.

Her third date would be with a 31-year-old man, whose last name is also Eom, to Lotte World and N Seoul Tower.

Good luck and date for your glory, 180cm Koreans!

The Singing Beggars In The House

If you yet to know, foreign beggars scatter in Malaysia cities are starting to use a new tactic to collect donations, by serenading the people first. The women, one of them equipped with a guitar, would go to food outlets, open restaurants and mamak stalls, hoping to win favours with their singing skills.

Often travelling in groups of three, the women would sing songs from foreign countries such as the Philippines as well as golden oldies. They would sing for about five minutes and then take out a “donation booklet” in aid of welfare homes in their home country. It is proved by police that these women were part of a syndicate trying to earn easy money from kind people.

I was lucky to witness the 'live' show where I'm having a drink with my friend in an open restaurant in the mid of last month, when I was back to my hometown for vacation. When we are chatting, we heard someone singing Christmas song with guitar from our back. We were a little bit excited intially. Don't misunderstood, the guitar they carrying is a tiny one, just enough for them to carry around easily and to make some noise within 20-30 meters. When one of the women took out the booklet, we know what they want. Fortunately, we did not make any donation to them. Yes, their vocals sound that they were from philipines.

Anyway, according to the police, these foreigners are earning big bucks. They once caught a 60 year old man from China who earned thousands of RM dollars monthly and even stayed in a hotel. Most foreign beggars entered the country on social visitors’ passes. The more people give, the more beggars will continue with their chosen profession.



If they sing with this kind of quality, perhaps I will donate some.

A Bride Transformation

Perhaps this is not going to happen on you. Just in case, please make sure you check properly before you get marry. Gotcha!

Hot Cheerleaders Blamed for Defeat in Asian Games?

With China sweeping up the gold medals faster than ever in Guangzhou, it leaves little mystery as to which country will top this Asian Games’ medal count on November 27 when the games come to a close. That’s probably why the audience and photographers are looking away from the podiums for some excitement.

The Chinese cheerleaders of the Guangzhou Asian Games have headlined the local press over the past few days, with those on the beach volleyball and basketball court getting an excessive share of the spotlight. And at least one losing player blames them for his team's defeat.

"The cheerleaders had an effect on how we played. I think they had something to do with our losing the match, " said Yemenite beach volleyball player Adeeb Mahfoudh to The Telegraph yesterday. Yemen lost its beach volleyball game against Indonesia on November 16. Well, I would say that Yemenite player who complained about this is an ass hole. By right you have to concentrate your match, it's your game, dude! Why your opponent did not complain about it? You just cannot blame pretty women for being sexy.

Who says China doesn’t have a secret weapon? According to Ben Ben, captain of one of the beach volleyball cheering teams, most cheerleaders are university students who went through a national draft. To prepare for this Asian Games, those girls, whose average age is 20, have gone through some intensive training since June.

Good job, Chinese cheerleaders!

Smart Vending Machine?

A vending machine in Japan which recommends drinks to customers based on facial recognition data has tripled sales. JR East Water Business has previously installed two vending machines in JR Shinagawa station and it is believed that the recognition technology is responsible for a vast increase in sales in comparison to traditional machines.

The vending machines recommend beverages after physical attributes of customers are picked up by sensors which allow the machines determine age, sex and other attributes, before offering a number of suggestions. A male consumer, according to Nikkei (subscription), may be shown images of canned coffee due to customer research, which will be displayed on the 47 inch touchscreen monitor before reverting to a normal vending machine display.

Quite how customers react to being recommended three diet beverages based on the vending machine’s judgemental leer is unclear, but the idea of a catty, bitchy machine is certainly intriguing. As the technology becomes more commonplace we can expect to see plenty more chubby commuters crying into their skinny lattes while waiting for a train, too afraid or unable to argue with the machine's decision. The technology will also allow for recommendations to be altered due to temperature conditions and time of day.

The vending machine will now be rolled out in Tokyo Station, with five machines to be installed near the Shinkansen bullet train and near ticket gates. If the vending machine continues to attract as much business it is hope that 500 machines will be installed in Tokyo and three prefectures which will account for 12 percent of the network by March 2012.

Existing vending machines in Chiba and Saitama are expected to switch to the new technology by the end of the year in the country where a bizarre range of products are sold within machines - notably girls underwear, sake and even live crabs.

But the new technology offers some frightening prospects. With machines telling us what to drink how long until we are told what to eat and what to wear? The idea of a 1984-style Big Brother state fronted by the double-headed hydra that is a computerised Trinny and Susanna is almost too scary. As well as advertising products it is also noted that the machines could be useful in other applications such as gathering sales data for promotional activities.

6 Ways To Live Like A Billionaire

Carlos Slim Helú, a telecom tycoon and billionaire with well-known frugal tendencies, has a net worth of US$60.6 billions. Assuming no changes in his net worth, he could spend $1,150 a minute for the next 100 years before he ran out of money. To put this in perspective, he could spend in 13 minutes, what a minimum-wage earner brings home after an entire year of the daily grind.

 

Granted, the world's billionaires, all 1,011 of them, are in the position of having, quite literally, more money than they can possibly spend, yet some still live well below their means and save money in surprising places. Even nonbillionaires can partake in these spending tips from frugal billionaires.

 

1. Keep your home simple.

 

Billionaires can afford to live in the most exclusive mansions imaginable, such as Bill Gates' sprawling 66,000 square foot, $147.5 million mansion in Medina, Wash. Yet frugal billionaires like Warren Buffett choose to keep it simple. Buffett lives in the five-bedroom house in Omaha, Neb., that he purchased in 1957 for $31,500. Likewise, Slim has lived in the same house for more than 40 years.

2. Use self-powered or public transportation.

 

Thrifty billionaires including John Caudwell, David Cheriton and Chuck Feeney prefer to walk, bike or use public transportation when getting around town. Certainly these wealthy individuals could afford to take a helicopter to their lunch meetings, or ride in chauffeur-driven Bentleys, but they choose to get a little exercise or take advantage of public transportation instead. Good for the bank account and great for the environment.

3. Buy your clothes off the rack.

While some people, regardless of their net worth, place a huge emphasis on wearing designer clothes and shoes, some frugal billionaires decide it's simply not worth the effort or expense. You can find Cheriton, the Stanford professor who matched Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to the venture capitalists at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (resulting in a large reward of Google stock), wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of the furniture company Ikea, avoids wearing suits, and Caudwell, the mobile phone mogul, buys his clothes off the rack instead of spending his wealth on designer clothes.

 

 

4. Keep your scissors sharp. 

 

The average haircut costs about $45, but people can and do spend up to $800 per cut and style. Multiply that by 8.6 (to account for a cut every six weeks) and it adds up to $7,200 per year, not including tips.

 

These billionaires can certainly afford the most stylish haircuts, but many cannot be bothered by the time it takes or the high price tag for the posh salons. Billionaires like Caudwell and Cheriton cut their own hair at home.

5. Drive a regular car.

While billionaires like Larry Ellison, co-founder and CEO of Oracle enjoy spending millions on cars, boats and planes, others remain low key with their vehicles of choice. Jim Walton of the Wal-Mart clan drives a 15-year-old pickup truck. Azim Premji, an Indian business tycoon, reportedly drives a Toyota Corolla. And Kamprad of Ikea drives a 10-year-old Volvo. The idea is to buy a dependable car and drive it into the ground. No need for a different car each day of the week for these frugal billionaires.

6. Skip luxury items.

It may surprise some of us, but the world's wealthiest person, Slim, the one who could spend more than a thousand dollars a minute and not run out of money for 100 years, does not own a yacht or a plane.

Many other billionaires have chosen to skip these luxury items. Buffett also avoids these lavish material items, stating "Most toys are just a pain in the neck."

 

 

Lesson We Can Learn

 

Some of the world's billionaires have frugal tendencies. Perhaps this thrifty nature even helped them keep some of their money.

Regardless, they have chosen to avoid some unnecessary spending (at least on their scale) and the 6.86 billion nonbillionaires out there can follow suit, eliminating excessive, keep-up-with-the-Joneses style spending. No matter what your income bracket is, you can usually find ways to cut back on frivolous spending, just like a few frugal billionaires do.

 

Article Reported by Jean Folger

A Way to Cure Premature Ejaculation?

Are you watching porn frequently? If yes, do you get any benefit from it? Expert recently said watching porn movies can help cure premature ejaculation. I don't mind watching porn most of the time, but how true is it?

A local newspaper reported that a man who was diagnosed with prostatitis went to seek treatment at a hospital in Guizhou, China, and was asked to watch porn movies. He paid about S$120 for the treatment.

Singapore urologist Dr Lin Fa Cai said the hospital might want the patient to masturbate while watching the movies, in order for him to discharge “unhealthy sperm”. He said the movies used in such treatments were specially selected.

Dr Yang Zhi Jian from a men’s health clinic in Singapore said watching porn films could help as patients learn skills to improve their sex lives. He, however, said he had never used the method before. What a bull shit.

Another sex expert, Dr Yu Wei Siang, said the method could stimulate the production of male hormones.

 

If these experts are really categorized as 'expert', I would say you are the master!



Book Review: Winning

If you are looking for a general corporate management book, I would say Winning written by Jack Welch is the best management book I ever read. Even you are not in management level, I would say you are still encourage to read this magnificent book. Perhaps you will like it.

Book Title: Winning

Category: Business/Management

Author: Jack Welch

Publish Year: 2005

Why? Basically Winning covered the necessity of management we need to practice in few fundamental aspects. The book also written in a way that easy to understand. Once you start reading it, you will keep reading until the end. That's the beauty of this book. Jack Welch has tried his best to bring out the meaning of management and the way the management should be.

If you haven't know, Jack Weltch was the most successful CEO of General Electric, with net worth of US$720 millions. He is 75 and he is having tour to give talk and seminar to the management people aroud the world.

Winning, the Wall Street Journal and New York Time Bestseller was published in year 2005 and perhaps most of you have heard or read it. However, I only came to know it early in the mid of last year through my cousin. Basically Winning breaks the content into 4 sections. The initial section is just to awake and notify people that what a good management should possess, such as candor and differentiation. The second section is discussing about how you should manage your people, including hiring and firing. That's a good guide for new manager.

Where section 3 touched about how you should face with competition. The best part of it is the how-to strategy. It is simple but yet useful. And the final section is talked about your career, how you should face your boss and get the right job.

Overall, I gave Winning the following ratings:

Content: 9/10

Easy to understand: 8/10

Chapter Sequence: 6.5/10

Usefulness: 7/10

Worth the penny: 9/10

Jack Welch also has few other books, perhaps I will review his another book I've read next time.

If you have yet to come across Winning, go grab one copy today! It's totally affordable and worth the penny!

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Movie Review

Recenly, it seems like no movie attracted my attention after Inception, until Oliver Stone film released a couple of weeks back, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Well, I love stock market and Wall Street, so I believe this movie should be for me. As far as I know, this should be Wall Street 2 after the original one on show in year 1987, casted by Michael Douglas.

After spent 2 hours sitting in front of the screen, I found out this movie is not what I expected. I mean it is not as interested and as excited as I was expected. I remembered that I watch a local stock market deception movie made in Hong Kong on last year. It was a lot better than Wall Street. It is a lot easier to understand and story line is clear. In fact, I don't really understand what are these guys are talking about in the movie. Perhaps that's a little bit too technical for me, compare to what I know about real Wall Street.

I felt disappointed because they can't make it simpler for those non-literate Wall Street movie fans to understand what they are trying to express. Well, perhaps most of the Americans understand about what is the movie talks about, as it was a recent history for them. Moreover, the casts, Michael, Carey and Shia are just not my cup of tea. With the casts, boring scenes, and the difficulty to understand, I would say this is totally a no-go movie for me.

Here's my personal rating for Wall Street movie.

Cast: 2/10

Plot: 3/10
Effect: 5/10
Cinematography: 6/10

Story line: 5/10

Overall: 4/10

Anyway, the opinions above are just my personal opinion. Most probably I'm more prefer to watch action and comedy movie. I have my respect to Stone and the casts. Cheers.

How Corrupt Is Your Country?

On yesterday, Transparency International has released an official report on Corruption Index over 178 countries. The report is based on the ratings given by businessmen and professionals opinions to the government of the listed countries. on scale from 0 (highly corrupt) and 10 (highly clean). In general, index below 3 considers the corruption is very serious, where 7 above is consider clean.

Congratulations to Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore, as they are rated as world #1 in this survey, where Finland and Sweden ranking at #4, and #6 to #10 are taken by Canada, Netherland, Australia, Switzerland and Norway. North Europe has conquered 4 seats out of 10, where Asia has 3 seats in hand.

The bottom rank is Somalia with index 1.1, where Myanmar and afghanistan grab the last 2nd, Iraq no.4 from behind, Sudan, Turkemenistan and Uzbekistan at last no.5. I feel bad for them. Notable among decliners over the past year are some of the countries most affected by financial crisis percipitated by transparency and integrity deficits.

As for Malaysia, it is rated as 4.4, ranking at 56 out of 178 countries. The index is slighly lower than last year, where it has 4.5 on last year. And in year 2008, Malaysia is rated 5.1. From the statistics, can we say Malaysia did a poor job on this?

May be. But as usual, I'm expecting the representative from The Government will gives a lot of craps to local reporters to deny the truth.

Rebootless Updates For Your Windows

"You must restart your computer to install these updates." Everyone has seen this message before, and everyone hates it. Rebooting is a disruptive process--and, as a consequence, many system administrators and end-users delay the installation of important updates. Unfortunately, updates correct security vulnerabilities, and a machine that is not up to date is necessarily also a vulnerable one.

We wonder why Microsoft never try to solve this problem? They just want us to reboot our server and computer almost everytime we apply their fixes and patches? It really doesn't make sense! Fortunately, human is always creative. And thanks to Ksplice, the solution is out there. Ksplice has managed to bag US$100,000 grand prize in Forbes 3rd annual Boost Your Business content with this product. You may want to read it's success story below.

"Ksplice has developed a solution to this problem: technology that can transform traditional updates into rebootless updates. This technology makes it possible to patch software while it is running, without any disruption or downtime. Software vulnerabilities cost U.S. companies hundreds of billions of dollars per year, according to a study by the Government Accountability Office. This number could be dramatically reduced if system administrators kept software up to date with the latest bug fixes. In fact, the vast majority of security exploit attacks in the wild--greater than 90%--are made possible by systems not being patched with the latest available updates. A solution that makes it possible to deploy updates seamlessly could save companies tens of billions of dollars per year in reduced operational costs and reduced costs from security incidents.

We will sell to software and system vendors (e.g., operating system vendors, telecom and networking equipment vendors, enterprise software application vendors, storage solution vendors) who want the capability of distributing rebootless updates for their products. Ksplice will be paid in three ways: a license fee, a development fee for transforming each traditional update into a rebootless update, and a small royalty fee for each unit that features this technology."

Perhaps the next challenge is, someone able to develop a virus/spyware-free Windows system? We'll see.

Google $1 Billion A Year Tax Cutting Strategy

Larry Page, one of the richest men in the world.

Google cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda.

Google’s income shifting -- involving strategies known to lawyers as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich” -- helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.

The U.S. corporate income-tax rate is 35 percent. In the U.K., Google’s second-biggest market by revenue, it’s 28 percent.

Google, the owner of the world’s most popular search engine, uses a strategy that has gained favor among such companies as Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The method takes advantage of Irish tax law to legally shuttle profits into and out of subsidiaries there, largely escaping the country’s 12.5 percent income tax. 

Google Office in Dublin, Ireland.

Google’s annual reports from 2007 to 2009 ascribe a cumulative $3.1 billion tax savings to the “foreign rate differential.” Such entries typically describe how much tax U.S. companies save from profits earned overseas.

In February, the Obama administration proposed measures to curb shifting profits offshore, part of a package intended to raise $12 billion a year over the coming decade. While the key proposals largely haven’t advanced in Congress, the IRS said in April it would devote additional agents and lawyers to focus on five large transfer pricing arrangements.

The rules for transfer pricing should be replaced with a system that allocates profits among countries the way most U.S. states with a corporate income tax do -- based on such aspects as sales or number of employees in each jurisdiction, said Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, director of the international tax program at the University of Michigan Law School.

“The system is broken and I think it needs to be scrapped,” said Avi-Yonah, also a special counsel at law firm Steptoe & Johnson LLP in Washington D.C. “Companies are getting away with murder.”

 

Reported by: Jesse Drucker in New York

Octoberfest Beer Celebration In The House

It's Octoberfest beer celebration in the country! The event is organized by Guiness Anchor Ltd. Yes, as usual, I missed it. But it's consider lucky that many local bloggers are sharing their photos in the event. I just picked one of the best bloggers photos for our pleasure view.

Perhaps I should put my own photos celebrating with my friends next year. Let's see.

Where Ideas Go To Die

MORE than a year ago, our Science Ministry launched a website called MyIdeas. The thinking behind this is to get as many brilliant ideas, from all kinds of people, that can be implemented.

There are now some 6,037 ideas on the portal based on my last check yesterday. The very first idea posted on the website was "recognise and reward creativity and innovation at all levels through national and state innovation and creativity awards" by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

But if you click on the icon that says "ideas in action", which basically means what it says, it will tell you this: No ideas are in action yet.

That's a shame because don't tell me not one of the 6,037 ideas is worth carrying out.

Some ideas are quite interesting, like the one from Muhamad Zahin Shaharuddin who suggests having lockers at schools to deal with the problem of heavy bags. Nurul Syaza Sarkawi says the government should subsidise the price of bicycles so that Malaysians could cycle instead of drive to nearby places. Kogilavani Muniappan thinks young people should be taught or exposed to basic Internet laws or Copyright Acts, which would presumably improve society's awareness of piracy.

Author Frank McCourt in his book "Teacher Man" tells of how he had an epiphany of how to teach teenagers English during his days as a teacher in New York in the 1950s and 1960s. His students were resisting writing assignments but they were writing a lot of excuse notes, supposedly written by parents to explain why their kids had to miss class. Teachers knew these notes were mostly fiction. And that was when an idea struck him. He assigned them to write excuse notes for Lee Harvey Oswald (the guy who shot and killed a US president) and gangster Al Capone, among others.

 
McCourt's students loved it, the principal loved it and even the school supervisor loved it.

Is the MyIdeas portal a bad idea? No, of course not. But it needs to show results of ideas that have been or being implemented. Otherwise it will perpetuate the perception that we are a nation of planners and not doers.

One way to improve MyIdeas is to have a group of people that goes through all ideas and filter them down to the best 10. All of this must be communicated to users who obviously would want to know the progress and milestones of what they have proposed.

But we should not be thinking that just because MyIdeas is a government initiative, its implementation should be left to the government. Instead, some ideas could be carried out by the private sector, non-government organisations or even large charity organisations.

Although I have registered as a user of MyIdeas, I have yet to contribute anything to the site. The reason I registered was to check how the website was doing and whether there was a story in it. It turns out there was.

Good ideas are hard to come by, but even harder is to implement those ideas. But implementation is what gives ideas their value. A teacher, who carries out a good idea, would get students interested in knowledge.

So here is my idea. Universities should invite successful people to give talks at their graduation ceremonies. Malaysians, especially the young, could do with a little bit of inspiration. Steve Jobs, Apple Inc's founder, gave a good speech at Stanford University in 2005 and it's on Youtube. I highly recommend it.

Article written by: Shahriman Johari