The Sinners Guide to Scams and Cons

“Between a fellow who is stupid and honest and one who is smart and crooked, I will take the first. I won’t get much out of him, but with that other guy 
I can’t keep what I’ve got”~Lewis B Hershey

THE LANGUAGE OF THE CON. As a practicing lawyer, I have heard many, many fishy stories. I have read many, many documents, great works of forgery, and in some instances, fantasy - in one instant that I shan't easily forget is coming across an official Land Office document which was written over by one individual to alienate a certain part of his property as a garden and home for elves (no kidding). I have learnt a little I think, to distinguish between the sincere and the less-than-sincere, and use my nose to smell a rat. I have also come across many ‘businessmen’ who are honest but naïve in the ways of the world. But  of course, I have also come across a number of con artists. These are some telling points about our ethically-handicapped friends (of course, some of whom are down right criminal) –

THE GREAT PYRAMIDS - If it looks like pyramid scheme. If it smells, walks and talks like a pyramid scheme. Then, in ALL probability, it is a pyramid scheme. It doesn’t matter what the ‘object for sale / trade’ is. In my short life I have come across blatant gimmicks like shoe polish, mattresses and herb-infused women’s err... feminine pads that doubles as an alternative remedy for high-fever – you plop it on your forehead. (I kid you not), that is utilized as the ‘trade’ to justify collecting a disproportionately high ‘purchase price’. Alternatively, I have come across pyramid schemes organized around a real estate development, with millions upon millions of dollars invested to market and give a veneer of legitimacy to the fraudulent program. The simple rule is that if there is a ‘down-liner’ structure, if you are required to make a hefty deposit (say, 20-30%), then it is highly likely that it is pyramid-ponzi scheme.

THEY ARE FAST TALKERS! Conmen tend to talk fast. They are not too fond of pauses and silent contemplation. They have a story to sell and they don’t want you thinking too much over it…”And you said that Ferdinand Marcos had this deal with…? What date exactly? Waitaminute, wasn’t he overthrown already then?

THEY TRAVEL IN GROUPS! They often come with hanger-ons. Sometimes two, three even four ‘partners’ who appear to have no role whatsoever but to take up valuable space in your meeting room. Oh, they sometimes nod vigorously in agreement with the lead speaker's claims, and that's it. Most of the time not  a word would they breath through out the entire pitch.

THEY ARE BEING SHADOWED BY THE CIA! If they throw in words suggesting grand conspiracies like the CIA, the FBI, IMF, President of the United States, World Bank, McDonalds, Freemasons… and how these people would come down hard on them for their product (whatever it may be) if only they BUT knew! But of course, in the real world, those that need to be-in-the-know are probably already in-the-know. So the question is, why are such ‘malevolent forces’ not doing anything? Of course the truth is, they don’t care, because it is all a pack of lies.

He was caught and punished. But mainly because he
soaked and conned his own class, the rich.

IT IS YOUR LUCKY DAY! If it is such a great idea, if it is such a brilliant scheme… why are they coming to you? Why not just keep it to themselves, or at the most to their close friends and family? Why need they set up shop in your country and not their own? And even if they had to, why not get venture capital from the USA, Britain or Europe? If the idea is too good to be true, you KNOW that it is too good to be true.

JUST PAY USD20,000 AND YOU ARE GUARANTEED TO GET USD6 MILLION! And finally, the clinching evidence if you have any doubt as to the honesty of any deal - If such a scheme entails you paying a small amount relative to what you will get – say, paying a USD20,000 to help ‘facilitate lottery administrative charges’, ‘pay death duties’, ‘settle bank financial fees', ‘help procure necessary permits to remit monies cross-borders’, through which a disproportionate amount of money (maybe USD6 million and above) is released / remitted into your account, then come on… you have to be naive to fall for such trickery.

Listen to your heart… Though your dry-bone and almost empty wallet is shouting to be filled. This will save you money, or at least the blushes of being duped by a con artist.

This has been a public service broadcast from the sinners’ almanac. I hope you found it to be helpful. Actually, I have been wanting to write this for the longest time.

Thank you for dropping in, sunshine.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

The Crazies, the Crazier One and the Craziest of Them All

23. Beautiful Friendship

How wonderful is friendship,

And the Lord has assigned special heralds,

With wings in bright plumage and eyes aglow with warmth,

To company the gathering of good friends,

So that each friend to me,

Looked, oh Lord, how beautiful!

So that each moment together,

Felt to me, oh Lord, how precious!

...................

A friend of the al-Marhum Shaykh Raja Ashman ibni Sultan Azlan Shah (Ku Ash) posted this picture below on my Facebook. Thus, I am taking it and using it. It's okay. By my loss of reason I have permission to do so...

A group of crazies, with a crazier one, and the craziest of them all.

I feel that the crazies are the lucky ones, the crazier one is the honoured one, and the craziest of them all holds the key to the asylum. But if you look at the world now turned upside down closely with your heart, who are actually the inmates and who are actually the doctors?

After all, more than a thousand years ago, the Companions of the Prophet(pbuh) were considered insane to follow the craziest of them all, Muhammad ibn Abdullah (pbuh) - considered by many right-thinking Quraysh nobility then to be a dastardly trouble-maker, a rebel, a man with no respect of religious traditions, a breaker of families, a sorcerer and a mad man.

I will not tell you to choose which side of history to participate, for I really don't know anything much. But in the teachings of Muhammad(pbuh) all that long years ago in the desert and dunes of Arabia, he had much to say and to give. He says follow Haqq (God, the Truth) and follow your heart. Follow it to the rightful conclusion, however such choices may dismay those ruled by their reason. For in truth it is not reason that they portray, but like lemmings they slavishly follow the delusion and illusion of knowledge spun like a spiders' web by their four-legged ego.

So be wary, be happy and have a craaaazy day, sunshine!

Wallowing like a hippo in a divine cocktail. 

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

King Abdullah of Jordan, the Caliph of Islam, Emir of All the Believers - May God grant his reign to be merciful and beautiful

The Lion of the Desert

O’ rightful heir,

O’ rightful king,

O’ rightful deputy,

We are in the desert of ignorance,

We are thirsty for guidance,

We are waiting for a leader,

We are proclaiming our allegiance to thee,

Following a full moon shining over Qubruz,

We are proclaiming our allegiance to thee,

O’ Lion of the Desert,

O’ Lion of God!

Accept our allegiance

With kisses on your blessed hands and feet,

Accept our allegiance

As weak servants to thee,

O’ Sultan!

O’ Lion of the Desert!

O’ Lion of God!

With your three regiments,

Bearing the Banner of the Prophet!

The banner of the Mahdi!

And your royal standard!

Truth is with you, we are with Truth!

Falsehood is broken and wounded!

Truth is with you, we are with Truth!

Falsehood is broken as Truth commanded!

.................

We have all been waiting...

This is what I call a technical prose and perhaps more relevant to the Muslims, as it is related to the new Caliph of Islam, Amirul Muqminin (Leader of the Believers) - His Majesty King Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. But Muslim, believer or otherwise, you will want to be able to answer your kid, "Hey Dad, where were you when the new Caliph of Islam was announced?" Your reply: "Oh my son, I was reading that fatuous blog 'The Sinners Almanac'. In fact I got the news from there, of all the unlikely places!" But to share a little bit more disclosure than is common by your reticent writer, the pronouncement by the Sufi shaykh in the small town of Lefke, Cyprus can be seen on video by Clicking Here - The pertinent videos are entitled "To King Abdullah" (28.04.2012). And you can scroll down to the earlier video entitled "Arshu Sham" (08.04.2012). For English, click on the subtitle.

Have a beautiful Sunday, sunshine. God bless you.

Earlier Postings on the New Caliph:
* ISLAM'S CALIPH ON THE THRONE OF JORDAN? - Islam came as a stranger and will come back as a stranger... Therefore give glad tidings to the strangers...
* IN THE STRUGGLE IN THE MEANING OF WORDS THE LION OF GOD IS NOT SLEEPING - The Caliph, The Believers and the Banner of Truth

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Footnote 30.04.2012: There is a little bit more flurry of activity about the pronouncement on the new Caliph. And perhaps it is enlightening (but predictable) that it has become some subject of ridicule and even vilification in some Muslim forums. It is also ironic that the only online coverage is by Muslims forums that attack the good King Abdullah as either unworthy (read too Western), a traitor to the Arabs, a CIA flunky or even worse, an Israeli-zionist agent on one hand, and on the other hand are a whole tribe of neo-con fundamentalist 'Christian' end-of-time Dominionist websites (like Jihadwatch) that have long eyed King Abdullah, being a direct descendant of the Prophet (pbuh) as a likely candidate for the Caliph.

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

IN THE STRUGGLE IN THE MEANING OF WORDS THE LION OF GOD IS NOT SLEEPING - The Caliph, The Believers and the Banner of Truth

Nature of Words, the Amirul Muqminin

Words are signposts

And gates to a matrix

Of complex emotions

And perceptions of knowledge

That man like to call experiences.

If you like, it is like a button,

But what the button triggers

When you push it entirely depends on you.

And there in a nutshell is all you need

To understand about the written and spoken words

And our God-given choices.

To some, God is akin to a tribal war God,

Jealous and Vengeful,

To others, God is the delicate ripple in a stream,

The laughter and crying of little babes,

And the glowing beauty of mothers.

To some, the music of God is

In the beating of the war drums,

And in the mad chants of a street mob,

To others, the music of God is

In the sounds of  birds and crickets,

In the rhythmic pulse of a Sufi assembly,

And in the music of Mozart, Bach and Tchaikovsky,

The Compositions of God’s Glory.

To some, God is the God of hate and hubris,

Despair and Ignorance, Alienation and Death,

To others, God is the God of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad,

God the Ever-Living, Holding the Leash of the Lion of God,

His most humble servant, the Caliph of Islam,

The Amirul Muqminin.

Now then… what do you feel when you say the word ‘God’?

………………………………………

Life is all about a journey in the meaning of words. And the Great Jihad (Jihad-ul Akbar) is all about the struggle in the meaning of words. It is a wholly personal and intimate struggle within oneself, and it begins with oneself - He who knows himself knows his Lord.

About a week ago, an old Sufi grandshaykh in a non-descript small village in Lefke, Cyprus announced the new Caliph of Islam, His Highness King Abdullah II of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. And this is a special event, but only part of an ancient chain of events marking the eternal struggle in the meaning of words - What does it mean when you say the word 'God'? What is a Caliph? What is a Muslim? What is a Believer (Muqminin)? What is a man? A woman? What is meant by Heaven? What is Earth? What is the Devil? This jihad is not the monopoly of Muslims. This is your jihad too, the jihad of all mankind, as we seek to understand our place in the Cosmos, as we seek to define our rights and obligations towards each other as members of the human race.

The jihad in the meaning of words places all of mankind on the same level, because the essential subject matter, Mankind himself is exactly the same whether you are from Wyoming or Granada, from Moscow or Sao Paulo. Only our skin tone, our hair, our stature, our facial features and the colour of our eyes may be different. But these are only the earthly dresses that our souls wear... alas it has confounded some of us into thinking we are better than others, somehow more 'special' in the Eyes of God.

After a week of the declaration of the new Caliph, there is mostly silence, save for the stuttering and mutterings of a few souls on the internet. My only sadness, if you want to call it that, is Shaykh Raja Ashman Shah ibni Sultan Azlan Shah (Ku Ash) is not here to share this significant moment in history with his friends, followers and admirers. But if there is one thing which is taught in Sufi orders (indeed in mystic orders of all religion) is that nothing is coincidental. Everything happens to serve a purpose. In this near future, we shall all perhaps be privileged to witness the unmasking of deceit and the unveiling of truth. And this is always good news in our daily struggle in the meaning of words, don't you agree?

Oh wait. Before I leave I should answer the question - What do I feel when I say the word 'God'? Of course, I feel and think of you. For there is only one you - My brothers and sisters of all faith, united in the praise and worship of One God.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Earlier Postings on the Caliph: ISLAM'S CALIPH ON THE THRONE OF JORDAN? - Islam came as a stranger and will come back as a stranger... Therefore give glad tidings to the strangers...

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way.