Tim Worstall

Is electro smog causing your headache?
No.
Next question?
The computer industry airily dismisses any concerns, claiming that Wi-Fi uses only a few watts of energy – ‘less than a lightbulb’.
But this ignores the fact that light and microwaves are different kinds of electromagnetic radiation, so the analogy with the lightbulb is meaningless.
Erm, forgive me, for I might [...]

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In small print accompanying its annual report, the OFT admitted that the alleged fraud had not been detected because of a “control weakness” in the accounts payable department. The problem saw the OFT lose £97,000 last year and £153,000 the year before.
Anyone got the details? The [...]

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Looks like that edifice is finally going to come tumbling down.
A test case is to be heard in the chourt of appeal within weeks, which will challenge the investigation for the first time and could expose a “huge miscarriage of justice”, lawyers claim.
Chris Saltrese, the solicitor representing the convicted [...]

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The South African task force is reported to be considering freezing or confiscating Mr Tannenbaum’s assets. He is reported to have lured hundreds of investors with the promise of monthly returns of 11.5pc linked to pharmaceutical imports in an alleged fraud reported to be worth as [...]

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Owes the taxpayer £538,290.
And my, isn’t he struggling hard to not have to pay it back.

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Having licences for medicines when they’re going to be handed out to homeopathic remedies?
Prof Colquhoun said that the claims could contravene consumer protection laws which ban “falsely claiming that a product is able to cure illnesses”.
The pills are labelled “a homoeopathic medicinal product used with the homoeopathic tradition for the symptomatic relief of sprains, muscular [...]

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Hello,
How are you doing?hope all is well with you, i am sorry that i didn’t inform you about my traveling to England for a Seminar.
I need a favor from you as soon as you receive this e-mail because i misplaced my wallet on my way to the hotel where my money,and other valuable things were [...]

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An official Parliamentary inquiry ruled last night that Mrs Spelman had "inadvertently" broken the rules on expenses. Mrs Spelman apologised and said she would immediately repay the money.

Phew, bit of a relief, eh? I’ll use that next time I "inadvertently" walk out of the bank with ten grand that’s not mine shall I?
Ooops, sorry, here [...]

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The complaint against Pendergest-Holt said she failed to tell investigators she had served on the Antigua bank’s investment committee and that the investment portfolio holding more than 80 per cent of its assets included a $1.6 billion loan to Stanford "Executive A" – evidently Stanford [...]

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Sir Allen:

Last night, US television channels reported that Stanford had attempted to leave the country by private jet from Houston to Antigua, but the plane leasing company refused his credit card.

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There were also reports last night that five players in the victorious Stanford Super Series final side – Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Kieron Pollard, Sylvester Joseph and Dave Mohammed – had reinvested their personal winnings of $1m each with Stanford, and now risk losing it all. [...]

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The ‘Autovolantor’ – based on a £200,000 Ferrari 599 GTB – is being developed by "Moller International".

It will have the ability to take off vertically and hover thanks to eight powerful thrusters which direct air down for take off. Vents then tilt so the car can [...]

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The Department of Homeland Security is testing a type of body scanner that seeks out invisible clues that a person might be harbouring criminal intent, such as raised body temperature, pulse and breathing rate.
The system, called MALINTENT, uses a raft of "non-invasive" sensors and imagers to detect such factors remotely – subjects are not hooked [...]

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Bravo to The Times for this piece of research:

New microchipped passports designed to be foolproof against identity theft can be cloned and manipulated in minutes and accepted as genuine by the computer software recommended for use at international airports.
Tests for The Times exposed security flaws in the microchips introduced to protect against terrorism and organised [...]

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But technology has changed over the past few years. The infrastructure is now built on Microsoft’s Windows operating system, and the cash machines themselves can be remotely diagnosed and repaired online. Unfortunately, this means that PIN codes have started to “leak” along the way — suggesting that industry guidelines on encryption are not always being [...]

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THE House of Commons has shredded more than 1m documents detailing expenses claims by MPs that were due to be revealed to the public.
The Commons authorities said last week they had destroyed all documents for MPs up to April 2004, even though official guidelines state that such records should be kept for six years.

No, we [...]

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I’m always a sucker for responding to get rich quick ads. I’m always wondering whether anyone ever comes up with anything new, or whether it’s just the same old, same old, tricked out with a few new words.
So when a man who claims to be Bernard Eley emails me with an introduction to the Ultimate [...]

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No, really:

Popular vitamin supplements taken by millions of people in the hope of improving their health may do no good and could increase the risk of a premature death, researchers report today.

So, Linus Pauling was wrong then.

But Patrick Holford, a nutritionist who has formulated supplements for the company Biocare, said: "Antioxidants are not meant to [...]

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The EU is being urged to take action to stop a biofuel trading scam that exploits US agricultural subsidies and undermines the fight against global warming.
Up to 10% of biofuel exports from the US to Europe are believed to be part of the rogue scheme reaping big profits for agricultural trading firms.
The "splash and dash" [...]

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Check the date.

Flying pengiums indeed.

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