More on identity theft - a warning about a so-called ATO website

A scam email doing the rounds again purports to be from the Australian Tax Office.

The email states:

"Subject: Please submit your tax refund
After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund . Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 3-6 days in order to process it.
See your refund status by downloading attachment."

The email's attachment leads to a webpage that looks very much like an official ATO page, but it's not! The page seeks tax file numbers, date of birth and other personal details.

Details about the sender of the email are linked to the e address info@stout-associates.com

Who's been stealing my name?

Google Earth snapshot of the fictitious residence of the creator of the suspicious domain names

 Who's been stealing my name?

That will probably be the question on the lips of NSW Police Commissioner Andrew P. Scipione and two North Coast police officers when they find that their given names have been used to create web addresses and/or they are the nominal owners of not one but at least ten Internet domain names.

One of which spectacularly leads to a male escort website homepage graphically displaying photographs of nude torsos and erect genitalia.

These domain names were registered in 2011 and some are now being offered for sale by the 'owners'.

It seems that one particular New South Wales resident has experienced a burst of dubious creative flair at the expense of the state police force.

No wonder Tony Abbott can't lie straight in bed...

Look at the stable Australian Leader of the Opposition trained in. According to his own biographical notes at www.tonyabbott.com.au Tones teh Terrible Abbott admits:
"His previous career was in journalism, where he wrote as a feature writer for 'The Bulletin' and 'The Australian'."
The Bulletin may have been a xenophobic and openly racist Packer publication, but The Australian is of course a News Ltd newspaper and I have to wonder if it was at the feet of Rupert Murdoch that Tones honed his ability to tell political whoppers.
Abbott still writes for News Ltd today under its Daily Telegraph masthead and has been doing so since at least 2008.
In the last few days Tones has been fronting the cameras peddling one of his many proven falsehoods ie ''This is a draconian new police force chasing an invisible, odourless, weightless, tasteless substance''
It seems that, like Murdoch, the Opposition Leader still believes we love to eat manure at breakfast time.

Climate Change and YouTube

Some successful and not so successful YouTube user video lobbying on both sides of the Great Anthropomorphic Global Warming Divide*.......


http://youtu.be/yKUPUznJZoE


http://youtu.be/-zeGY8zbzc8


http://youtu.be/sSTLDel-G9k


http://youtu.be/eLs73KJI36w


http://youtu.be/S9ob9WdbXx0


http://youtu.be/CdvXWZxAAKQ


http://youtu.be/TQlHaGhYoF0

* Australian Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency,
Debunking The Myths

U.S. Election Cycle 2012: Retirees think Obama's best - by a slim margin

When it comes to placing money where confidence or hope lies, then U.S. retirees appear to think a re-elected Barack Obama is worth betting on, according to the Center for Responsive Politics:

†These numbers show how the industry ranks in total campaign giving as compared to more than 80 other industries. Rankings are shown only for industries (such as the Automotive industry) -- not for widely encompassing "sectors" (such as Transportation) or more detailed "categories" (like car dealers).

METHODOLOGY: The numbers on this page are based on contributions of $200 or more from PACs and individuals to federal candidates and from PACs, soft money (including directly from corporate and union treasuries) and individual donors to political parties and outside spending groups, as reported to the Federal Election Commission. "Donations to Democrats," "Donations to Republicans," and the associated percentages are based solely on contributions to candidates and parties. Independent expenditures and electioneering communications are not reflected in the breakdown by party." While election cycles are shown in charts as 1996, 1998, 2000 etc. they actually represent two-year periods. For example, the 2002 election cycle runs from January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2002.

Data for the current election cycle were released by the Federal Election Commission on Saturday, July 16, 2011.

NOTE: Soft money contributions to the national parties were not publicly disclosed until the 1991-92 election cycle, and were banned by the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act following the 2002 elections. Contributions to Outside Spending groups legalized by the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision are listed in the "Soft/Outside Money" column as are donations of "Levin" funds to state and local party committees. Levin funds were created by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

According to Open Secrets on 28 July 2011:

People listing their occupation on campaign finance filings as retired have given Romney at least $1.6 million. Pawlenty, meanwhile, has raised at least $577,000 from retirees. And retired people have contributed at least $324,600 to Paul's presidential campaign and $160,300 to Bachmann's.
Obama, meanwhile, has reported raising at least $3.1 million from retirees.

Mr. Denmore: Shock revelation! Tony Abbott is really a Marxist

Has the ever alert tweeter Mr. Denmore, of The Failed Estate, found an earlier mainfestation of the Arch-Denier himself?

MrDenmore
Shock revelation! Tony Abbott is really a Marxist. http://t.co/CiOox2X #auspol



http://youtu.be/DtMV44yoXZ0

After fifteen months surely The Herald-Sun & The Telegraph could get their disability pension facts straight

On 28 April 2010 the Federal Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs issued a joint media release (with the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) announcing a modified approach to assessment of impairment in relation to all new applicants applying for a Disability Support Pension after 1 January 2012.

On 10 May 2011 the Minister (along with the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations, Minister for Employment Participation and the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) announced welfare measures included in the 2011-12 Federal Budget and made it clear that new work capacity/participation requirements applied to new pension applicants and to those existing pension recipients under 35 years of age who have some capacity to work. At the same time Budget documents made clear that some of those changes affecting new applicants were now expected to start in September 2011.

In a 12 May 2011 news interview the Minister made it clear that the new work participation rules would affect up to 90,000 pensioners under 35 over the next two years.

On 1 June 2011 the Minister issued another joint media release (this time with the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) in which new reforms were again announced. This release also made it clear that eligibility changes applied to new applicants, not to all 815,000 individuals already receiving a full or part Disability Support Pension.

Centrelink’s website also made mention of these changes to the Disability Support Pension.

These welfare reforms were widely reported at the time and remain on the public record. Yet on 30 July 2011 The Herald-Sun ran this line:

DISABILITY support pension applicants will no longer be able to claim they are too fat to work or are unable due to other ailments that would previously have led them to claim benefits. Instead, 815,000 people will be assessed using new impairment tables on what work they could potentially do based on their disability.(See snapshot above)

While The Telegraph made an identical statement of ‘fact’ via the pen of the same journalist:

APPLICANTS for the disability support pension will no longer be able to claim they are too fat to work or are unable due to other ailments that would previously have led them to claim benefits.
Instead, 815,000 people on the pension will be assessed using new impairment tables on what work they could potentially do based on their disability.

At best this is sloppy reporting by News Ltd newspapers and at worst it could be seen as an attempt to produce distress within a vulnerable group and create yet more political mischief for the Gillard Government to deal with.

Unfortunately on the morning of 30 July ABC News Radio quoted News Ltd and helped spread the canard that all existing Disability Support pensioners were to be re-assessed for eligibility.

It wasn't until much later that the national broadcaster began to correct the record, followed by The Telegraph quietly emending that offending paragraph. As of 9pm on 30 July neither News Ltd nor the political reporter who wrote both articles had corrected The Herald-Sun version.