Jasmine Fiore’s Murder and Concrete Equities

Most of you by now are familiar with the case of Jasmine Fiore, a model whose body was found inside a suitcase. Police are searching for her husband, Ryan Alexander Jenkins, as a person of interest. As an interesting side note, his last job was as a sales representative with a Calgary company named “Concrete Equities.” It was involved in serious real estate investment fraud in Canada and is now in receivership.

I first became interested in Concrete Equities when a friend of mine asked me to check them out as she was interested in investing with them. Being as I am a thorough investigator, I discovered the following:

• Many of the return claims were exaggerated. They calculated the annual projected returns by taking the total over 5 years and dividing by 5, which doesn’t take compound interest into account.
• The returns quoted includes a large cash inflow by re-mortgaging at the end of 5 years based on an annual increase in the property’s value. First, the market crashed and this won’t be possible. Second, this is like placing a second mortgage on your house and saying ‘Look at all the interest I made.’
• After the re-mortgaging at the end of five years, the mortgage payments would increase. Thus either rents would have to increase, or cash distributions would be eliminated and possibly the investors would have to kick in extra funds to make the payments. The interest on the increased portion of the mortgage proceeds probably wouldn’t be deductible for tax purposes, as it was not incurred to earn income, but to distribute cash to unit holders.
• I checked the tax opinion in the offering memorandums. They didn’t contain this, and seemed suspicious in several other ways. I contacted the law firms credited with authoring the opinions to see if they actually did them. I was told they did not.
• The then vice president of the firm, Dave Humeniuk, was under a lifetime ban by the Real Estate Council of Alberta.
• The company president had on his facebook page pictures of the corporate jet and his collection of exotic cars. I had to ask where the money was going.

Since that time several things have happened:

• The company has faced disciplinary action from the Alberta Securities Commission with a fine of $82,000. This was for an unrelated infraction of involving investors who did not meet the proper qualifications.
• The Limited Partnership Investments have hit hard times and were proposed to be sold to a third party in exchange for unsecured debt for the unit holders. They protested.
• The Limited Partnerships have been placed in receivership, and the receivers have notices some irregularities, including funds being diverted.
• The company’s website is now offline.

Update: It is now being reported that Mr. Jenkins had been convicted of assaulting a previous girlfriend. I would ask why Concrete Equities would hire someone with a criminal record to sell their investments, but I already know the answer:  They hired someone under a lifetime ban from the Real Estate Association of Alberta to be their Vice President.  When I asked Dave Jones, President of Concrete Equities, why they would hire such a person as their VP, he just said “I let God be the judge of his character.”  Looks like some people aren’t very good judges of character.  Then again, when it comes to people with good, solid character, it takes one to know one!

Decision not to renew Chief Electoral Officer’s contract correct

An 11 member committee has decided not to renew the contract of the Chief electoral Officer, Lorne Gibson. Opposition MLA’s are crying foul, believing that he was ‘fired’ for speaking out. From my interactions with Mr. Gibson and his department I believe that he does not posses sufficient skill in interpreting the law to function in his position, nor did he sufficiently supervise and educate his staff.

I had carefully studied the Elections Act and checked and photographed some of the signs of a local candidate. I was concerned that the signs were violating section 134 of the Elections Act, which reads as follows:

134(1) Every printed or electronic advertisement, handbill, placard or poster having a reference to any election shall include on its front in legible form the name and address of the sponsor.

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to a printed or electronic advertisement, handbill, placard or poster bearing only one or more of the following:

(a)    the colours and logo of a registered political party;

(b)    the name of a registered political party;

(c)    the name of a candidate.

I called his office to find the answer to my question. I was told that he was only concerned with advertising in the polling station. The lady I taled to maintained this even after checking the act. It seems inappropriate to me that an ordinary citizen can have a deeper knowledge of the act in under 5 minutes than a civil servant whose job it is to administer and interpret it. I emailed my question to Mr. Gibson, who responded as follows:

In response to your first question, it would be my view that any other wording or the name of an electoral division on an advertisement would not “invalidate” the exception in 134(2). I would interpret the exception to mean that when either or all of (a), (b) or (c) are present, there is no need for name and address of the sponsor.

Clearly this interpretation is incorrect if the word ‘only’ 134(2) is referred to.

Based on my interaction with Mr. Gibson I must conclude that the decision to not renew his contract was correct.

The most vocal critic of the ‘firing’ is Liberal MLA. Hugh MacDonald. Today I checked Mr. MacDonald’s re-election website. Based on my reading of section 134 I must conclude that if the website was the same during the election, he is not in compliance with this section. The front page of the site reads “Last Updated ( Saturday, 09 February 2008 )”, therefore it is reasonable to conclude that the site was not in compliance during the campaign. I find it inappropriate that Mr. McDonald would comment or even be allowed to serve on the committee if his own campaign violated the Election Act.

I finally figured out why the Conservative party doesn’t get many votes in Toronto

Keep wishing buddy!

From Craigslist, see http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/tor/881177993.html

I quote:

Hello ladies of the internet!

I am here today, as are you, to find the love of my life ideally. Now, I am an introspective and reflective man so over my life I’ve come to realise exactly what I’m looking for in my ideal woman.Personally, I am 22 years old, my name is Perseus, I am attending U of T in the final year of my Engineering degree, and I am a little on the chubby side. I am a dedicated Green party voter and staunchly opposed to the Conversative (sic) hordes dashing themselves against the impregnable Liberal/NDP/Green keep of our fine enlightened city …..

As hobbies go, I am an avid gamer and enjoy delving into the myriad artistic realities of animé (the origin of my affinity for Asian culture, which is frankly superior).

You MUST fulfill the following requirements:
- Asian
- Woman
- Aged NO MORE THAN 23
- – and NO LESS THAN 16
- Petite build. Ideally no more than 115 lbs.
- – but no ‘Paris Hilton’ bulimics please! I like my women with some meat on them. …

I must stress again that this is for a SERIOUS, long term relationship. Not some ‘fling’ as though I were a boy toy to be tossed aside.

Hmmm, I suspect this fellow suffers from a little bit of ‘reality disconnect’, as do many Toronto voters. There is nothing wrong with preferring woman who are 115 lbs or under, but it is important to ensure you have what such a woman wants in a man. I’m also not sure how you find someone who is 115 lbs or under but has more “meat on her bones” than Paris Hilton.

Well, Torontonians, keep living in your anime dream world.  You think something is going to turn out like this but reality is more like this, this, this, or wose yet this.

Jack Layton’s confuses democracy with ‘Talk Like a Pirate Day’

Jack Layton recorded a youtube videoon p2pnet.net, a file sharing news service, declaring his support for file sharing services and the internet in general.

I quote the moustached munchkin:

“You know social networking sites, and and torrent sites, Youtube uh, operations, the the truly interactive websites are actually very fundamental to making a democracy work and to helping human intelligence to be shared and exchanged. It’s about as fundamentally democratic as you can get and we are ‘The New Democratic Party’. .. and what we want to see is, the the internet used as a public tool, it’s a public tool for exchanging ideas… the goals that we share, to achieve a more democratic country through the free exchange of information on the internet.”

If the internet is a public tool for exchanging ideas, why did Jack turn off the comments section his you tube video. “Adding comments has been disabled for this video.” Is he afraid that some ideas will be against him? I guess he supports the free exchange of information, except when it is anti-New Democrat.

Interactive websites like Digg, Slashdot and YouTube are wonderful tools for the democratic exchange of ideas. So are blogs, but somehow Jack failed to mention them. Perhaps he doesn’t like the idea of Blogging Tories. P2P file sharing services, however, are more about anarchy than democracy. Democracy is about having an open market for ideas and discussion, not stealing other’s intellectual property.

If you take at some of the P2P network indexing sites, like mininova, thepiratebay.org, mybittorrent, newtorrents, www.torrentbox, and torrentreactor it is obvious that these sites are more about the free exchange of commercial music, videos and software than the free exchange of ideas. What has being able to download a free copy of Adobe Photoshop, Borat or Spore got to do with democracy?

If Jack supports the free exchange of ideas, why doesn’t he speak out more against Communist China? They don’t allow their citizens to visit many western websites. Living next door to the Chinese consulate, I know that they have somehow taken action to prevent demonstrations against their repressive regime – one that prevents freedom of speech, assembly and religion and exploits workers. Democracy is about being able to say what you want freely, not being able to steal other’s work.

If Canada made the downloading of music, movies, books or programs perfectly legal, it will undermine the financial foundation of the artistic and commercial software communities. Artists would receive lower royalties, and record companies and movie studios will be less likely to take a gamble on new projects. There is another potential devastating problem with allowing free copyright violation. If Canadians download their music, movies and software rather that buying them, would not some studios cease all development activities in Canada as a protest?

Lets face it, downloading software, music and software is stealing intellectual property. People of true integrity will not support it. Yeah, it’s nice to be able to get anything you want for free, and it is a popular political stance, but it’s not right.

Jack speaks out against a two tier internet where file sharing services are throttled. This sounds good to start with, but lets take a minute to think about it. If half of all internet users are consistently downloading huge files, that will consume a huge amount of bandwidth compared to regular browsing, including Youtube. The result is either a slower internet for regular use, or internet providers will need to beef up their infrastructure and pass the costs on to consumers.

For Jack, it’s all about being abainst big corporations, not having a well thought out plan.

Fox News isn’t Racist

The pot calling the kettle a metalic cooking instrument

Rapper Nas delivered a petition this week claiming that Fox News was racist for its treatment of Obama. Fox isn’t racist, its just has some commentators that are a little biased.  People  are jumping on the bandwagon because they don’t like Fox.

Race has nothing to do with it. They criticize politicians on the basis of policy, character and experience, not skin color. Fox likes and liberals criticize African American conservatives such as Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, Alan Keyes and JC Watts. Does the fact that Fox criticizes many white liberal politicians like John Kerry, the Clintons, AlGore, Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi make them anti white?

Who presents a worse image of Afro-Americans, Fox News or rappers like NAS?  Both he and Kellis both had the ‘N word’ on their shirts at the Grammys. Lets face it, the lyrics and lifestyle presented by most rappers promotes the worst stereotype of black people and presents the poorest role models. Wouldn’t people like Condi, JC Watts, Senator Anne Cools, Jarome Iginla, Tiger Woods, Bill Cosby and Colin Powel make far better role models?

Back to blogging!

I’ve haven’t blogged in two years for a couple of reasons:

• We won the election. There wasn’t as much to complain about!
• My health. My sleep apnea was getting worse. I had to concentrate on more important things in my life. I have a new auto CPAP machine, so I feel a lot better now.
• Doing an original blog takes a lot of energy if you want to come up with original material.

I’m back. I hope to entertain and inform you with a mix of politics, humor, accounting, investment and tax articles.

Calgary SW Election Forum

I was at the Calgary South East forum Tuesday night.  It appeared to be quite a partisan crowd, from the moderator down who was a proud Liberal.  I myself prepared a list of tough questions, and asked two:

• I identified myself as Metis, and asked whywhen a Convervative MP, Jeremy Harrison, introduced a bill to award Metis Veterans the same pensions and benefits as other veterans the Libs voted against it.
• I asked if they thought it was fair the the Liberal attack ad claimed that we don’t know who Stephen Harper’s contributors are, when thelist is there on the conservative website.

James Ludwar, the Liberal candidate, had to disagree with his party’s actions on both of these.  He is a new Liberal, and not totally brainwashed, thus I hope we can shake his faith in his party a little. There seemed to be a lot of fear and misinformation about the conservative party among the people I talked to there.  Somehow the old Reform Party was terribly evil, but both the Liberals and the Greens copied their idea of the MP voting what his constituents wanted.  As well, I ‘accidentally’ left a copy of theNDP’s 1997 campaing literaturewith their brochures so people could see their inconsistency.

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Technorati Tags : Canadian+Election, Metis, Liberals

This Liberal Scandal is making international news

I just can’t keep track of all the scandals, but here is one that is making news outside of Canada:

In the article Hollywood’s Canadian politico lies about her approach to lawmaking , Boing-Boing discusses the misrepresentations of Liberal MP and Parliamentary
Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage Sarmite (Sam) Bulte in regards to some parliamentary hearings she chaired.  If you remember, Bulte’s name was in the news for a scandal involving a fundraising dinner hosted by the entertainment industry, and the donations received from them.

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Technorati Tags : Copyright, Liberals, Canadian+Election, Sam+Bulte

Bank Robbers. With guns. In our parliament.

 

When he was 29 Ivan Grose held up a bank.

He took a 22-year-old man hostage with a handgun to his back. 

He served 19 months for armed robbery. 

Know what else he has served? 

As Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs.

And as Vice-Chair of Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

Bank robbers with guns. 

In our government. 

In Canada. 

We did not make this up.

Choose your Canada.

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Technorati Tags : Canadian+Election, Bank+Robbers, Liberals

Scandal Overload and My Online Poll

The last few weeks has been crazy with all the Liberal Scandals.  Forget about the original adscam, we now have:

• Distasteful and untrue attack ads
• Dithering about the ‘Soldiers in the Street” ad.
• Options Canada
• Liberal Duffy intimidating journalist Duffy on air
• Liberal Candidate bribing NDP candidate to drop out of race
• Income trust scandal
• Tony Valeri’s Flipgate

It is just too much for me to keep track of.  I was considering doing a “Liberal Scandal of the Day” calendar, however I don’t have the time or energy for such a large project.  The part of my work that involves administering our systems at work has given me inspiration for a new poll.  Please follow the link:

Do the Liberals have more scandals, or Microsoft more security holes?

A humorous quandary if you are a computer geek.

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