AFTER THE DRUG LORD

Colombia: Drug lord's
decaying paradise

By Amy Rosenfeld Thursday Aug 9, 2012

Tourists can now wander freely around the former holiday mansion of infamous cocaine trafficker Pablo Escobar, writes Amy Rosenfeld.

The swimming pool at Pablo Escobar's former
holiday mansion  Photo / Amy Rosenfeld

Standing on the second-storey balcony of the crumbling, charred lakeside nightclub, it's difficult to imagine this was once the playground of one of the world's most notorious drug lords.

Pablo Escobar's bar - or remnants of it - jut out onto the abandoned dance floor. What was built to be the center of the party, where Colombia's underbelly cooked up drugs and plots, now rests under layers of dust and graffiti.

Over the hill, Escobar's holiday mansion is in even worse shape.

The swimming pool, inlaid with an elaborate mosaic pattern, is filled with rainwater and debris, the domed roof of the entranceway lies cracked on the earth, spindly trees fighting to grow through the rubble.

But the mansion's key draw card remains virtually unchanged from when Escobar and his entourage ruled these shores: a glittering, panoramic view of the expansive Lake Guatapé.

The solitary difference is that the lake surface, once used as a landing strip for drug-laden planes, is now heavy with holidaymakers on powerboats and jet skis.

Since Escobar's getaway was bombed by his rivals, the Cali Cartel, in 1992, the site has been left to mold and decay.

But one of the world's richest and most-wanted men once called this place his paradise. And it's not hard to see why.

Known as "the town of Zócalos" after the brightly-painted square tiles that skirt each cottage, Guatapé has a quaint, small-town feel. It's only two hours away from the party-haven of Medellín, but very far removed in all other respects.

The town of 11,000 people offers the perfect spot for any traveler looking to enjoy some time on the water, while avoiding the suffocating heat and hustlers that plague Colombia's coastal towns.

Midweek, the stalls selling snacks and souvenirs are quiet, and the lake-spanning zipline is closed. But on long weekends, which seem as common as arepas and coffee in Colombia, guests spill out of the few hostels and hotels and into the welcoming arms of tour guides.

Unlike tourist hotspots like Tayrona or Taganga, however, the majority of holidaymakers come from no further than Bogota or Cartagena.

Somehow, Guatapé seems to have avoided becoming part of Colombia's 'Gringo trail', but the increasing numbers of foreign day trippers from Medellín suggest it may not stay this way for long.

The lake, in reality a huge hydro-electric dam, encompasses dozens of islands, endless hidden coves, and one underwater town.

The story goes that the residents of Viejo Peñol, less than thrilled with the government's decision to flood their homes to build the dam, were only convinced to leave after a bomb was set off in the town church.

Now regular boat tours take travelers to visit a solitary cross peeking above the lake surface, marking the place where the church once stood . . . .

Full story in nzherald

Peter’s Piece

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (1949-1993) was a Columbian drug lord, narco-terrorist and politician who amassed a personal fortune of $3 billion US dollars.

He operated his own fleet of aircraft, including a Learjet, for running cocaine into the United States. At the peak of his drug-running, Escobar was moving half a ton of cocaine daily.

Escobar bribed, intimidated or murdered everyone who stood in his way. His once said that people had two choices; money or bullets. He is believed to have been responsible for the deaths of thousands of people.

He died in a hail of bullets on December 2, 1993 while attempting to escape over roof-tops.

RACISM AND COWARDICE

Muslims help to track extremists

Islamic leaders urge an end to protests

By Greg Ansley

5:30 AM Wednesday Sep 19, 2012  New Zealand Herald

Protesters march through Sydney. Photo / AFP

Islamic leaders have moved rapidly to stamp on extremists within their communities and heal serious rifts with other Australians in the wake of last Saturday's violent riot in Sydney.

Leaders of a wide range of Islamic groups met in Sydney and Melbourne - where they were joined by the city's Coptic Christian Bishop - as police tracked ringleaders through inflammatory texts and dozens of tips from within the Muslim community.

With conservative columnists and politicians calling for tougher measures, including demands for new barriers to Islamic immigration, Muslim organizations and websites received hundreds of death threats and abusive messages.

The leaders of 25 Sydney Muslim organizations yesterday condemned the violence, called for the "handful" of extremist troublemakers to be identified and punished by law, and urged that there be no further protests.

Texts obtained by ABC television's 7.30 Report advocated confrontation to deliver a strong message not only against the YouTube video mocking the Prophet Muhammad, but also other "intentional and deliberate attempts" to humiliate Islam.

The ABC also reported that protest leaders included some radicals with known links to Islamic extremism, including cases involving charges in 2005 brought against five men for planning a terror attack.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen is examining the possibility of cancelling the visas of any non-citizens charged in connection with the riot.

Lebanese Muslim Association president Samier Dandan told a press conference yesterday that it was no surprise people known to police were among the alleged ringleaders, and that the Muslim community would help to identify them . . . .

Full story in New Zealand Herald

Peter’s Piece

Whether it is racist films, emails or text messages the perpetrators are usually unsavory people who often have a criminal history.

They are filthy cowards who rely on gullible people to pass on their dirty work to others. People who receive and pass on hate propaganda thinking it will give their friends a laugh, or worse stir up hatred, are cowards too.

Racism is popular almost all over the world, but that doesn’t make it right.

Racists should try circulating or debating something that will make the world a better place, a cause they genuinely believe in, even if it may not be a popular cause.

FAKE BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviews:
Seeking the elusive truth

From The Independent Publishing Magazine

Amidst the recent book review scandals, which have tarnished the whole industry and made readers question the source and validity of many book reviews, Leslie Ramey, co-founder of Grub Street Reads, asks if now is the time for an impartial review system and seal of approval. She presents another option for readers and authors.

It’s not news for anyone in the business of writing and selling books that fake book reviews are a common, almost accepted, dirty secret within the industry. Readers, for the most part, remained blissfully innocent that many of the glowing, 5 star Amazon reviews on the novel they just purchased may have been faked by the author or written by a paid lackey who never even read the book.

Dirty laundry, however, has a way of crawling out into the sunlight. A recent expose in the New York Times on a defunct company that charged authors as much as $999 for positive book reviews fanned the flames of scandal. This was quickly followed by the discovery that well-known crime novelist R J Ellory was not only writing positive reviews for his books through a series of fake accounts, but also slamming the books of other authors.

TIPM has covered this growing scandal in detail, so instead of delving into the specifics, I’ll just sum up with what I consider to be the most stunning factoid to come out of this whole mess. Cited in the NY Times article, data expert Bing Liu estimated that about one third of all consumer reviews on the Internet are fake.

Ouch!

We all know that readers are swimming (some say drowning) in the massive amount of books coming to the market through traditional and self-published routes. Aside from recommendations from family and friends, book reviews and ratings were one of the few ways readers could judge the quality of a book. In fact, a 2010 report by The Bookseller found that book reviews contributed to roughly 13% percent of book sales. These book review scandals are sure to land a huge blow to reader confidence and take away one of the few tools self-published authors had to prove the quality of their work.

So, if books reviews can no longer be trusted, where do we readers and self-published authors go from here?

Some authors have publicly pledged to never take part in “sock puppeting”. While this is a laudable action, I doubt that it will make much of a ripple in popular reader sentiment. Let’s face it, book reviews are easy to fake and easy (though not necessarily cheap) to pay for. This scandal has raised awareness of the issue, but I doubt it’s done anything but temporarily stemmed the tide of fake reviews.

Now that the scales have fallen off the eyes of readers, they may never trust in book reviews again, which means it’s time to find an alternative and unimpeachable way to establish a book’s quality.

Alright, now it’s confession time.  I wasn’t exactly displeased when this book scandal broke, because my business partner, Jessica Bennett, and I have recently launched a company – Grub Street Reads – with the goal of creating an unimpeachable, third-party quality standard for independently and self-published books.

As a voracious reader, I know how confusing things have gotten over the last couple of years with so many self-published books flooding the market. Many of them are excellent, but a lot of them are…well, I like to say they’re still in “rough draft form”. It’s easy to get burned, which is why so many readers value reviews.

I also happen to be a self-published author myself, and I speak regularly with other self-published authors, so I know how untrustworthy reviews can be. Even the honest ones are usually written by sympathetic friends and family who just click 5 stars to avoid tears and accusations at the dinner table.

There have long been calls from writers and readers for an unbiased, third-party system to establish a quality standard for the indie and self-published book market.

Thus, Grub Street Reads was born. Our premise is simple. We believe that all good stories, no matter their genre or the specifics of the plot, share fundamental traits like well-developed characters, a consistent plot, strong pacing, and few, if any, grammatical errors.

The GSR endorsement is given to those novels that meet these basic quality standards. It’s that simple. Grub Street Reads functions as a third party vetting system, and our endorsement proves that a novel has been tried and tested and earned a passing mark (not given by the author’s mother or spouse).

I know that I’m bragging, but I can’t help but be excited about GSR. Jessica and I believe, and studies show, that consumers value seals of approval. It tells them that the endorsed product has met a standard, which makes it a less risky purchase . . . .

Read more:  http://www.theindependentpublishingmagazine.com/

Peter’s Piece

Books, hotels and a million other products and services claim endless five star reviews and never-ending high praise, but how many are genuine?

There is a better way, a way in which the reader does his or her own review. In a bookshop the reader can flick through the pages, read a paragraph or two and make a decision. That’s in a bookshop. But fewer books are being sold in bookshops as the e-book surge brushes them aside.

The prospective buyer of my books can download a free sample charge (usually 15%) without obligation to buy. It is a genuine free sample which makes almost all readers want to buy the book.

But even when readers decide to download my other e-books they can start with a free sample of the book. Using this reader’s-own-review strategy my e-book sales now exceed my print book sales.

No one knows better than the reader what he or she wants to read.

You be the judge -

download a free sample

of any of these books now

Great reading now available from Amazon or Smashwords

A SPOOKY HOTEL

For sale: A friendly
woman ghost

By Joanne Carroll

5:30 AM Sunday Sep 16, 2012

The Foveaux Hotel at Bluff, New Zealand comes with its own ghost

A southern New Zealand hotel haunted by a ghost who likes tall men is for sale.

Guests at the Foveaux Hotel in Bluff regularly claim a bedroom door has been opened by a female ghost.

Owner Nikki Little believed the ghost was of Mary Cameron, the original owner of the Temperance Hotel which was constructed on the Gore Street site in 1899.

The Temperance Hotel was demolished to make way for the construction of the art deco-style Foveaux Hotel in the 1930s, but Mary's spirit apparently lived on in the premises.

She said the ghost tended to favor tall male guests staying in room two.

"Every time we have tall men staying in room two they report the bedroom door opening by itself. Sometimes they complain to us that the door is broken or won't close but when we go up it just closes. But it's not a scary ghost," she said.

The hotel will be auctioned by Bayleys in Queenstown on September 27.

By Joanne Carroll | Email Joanne

More in the Herald: http://www.nzherald.co.nz

Peter’s Piece

For many years a rumor circulated about a ghost in a room at the old Chateau Tongariro in the central North Island.

It was reported that some guests who were ‘unwelcome’ would wake up in the morning to find their luggage already packed and placed outside the door.

I was unaware of these rumors until I stayed in that room one night and was obliged to get up and close the door three times during the night. The last time I checked by pulling on the door after closing it to find that it was firmly shut. But in the morning it was open again.

The old hotel had been used as a mental hospital during the 1940's and rumor had it that a patient had hung himself in that room and some people believed that he was still there protecting his territory with subtle urgings for guests to depart.

Find the friendly ghost in this great read

To download a free sample read, click here

RULES THAT CAN KILL

Failure of railway crossing regulations caused train crash

By Abby Gillies

3:31 PM Thursday Sep 13, 2012 New Zealand Herald

                                                                Photo / Thinkstock

A New Zealand railway crossing north of Wellington where a bus was hit by a freight train last year failed to comply with regulations, a transport investigation has found.

Six passengers and the driver got out of harm's way only moments before the train smashed into the "super-low-floor" bus after it became stuck on the track on Beach Rd in Paekakariki on October 31.

The crossing and a short section of road leading up to the intersection was not compatible with long and low road vehicles as required by NZ Transport Agency rules, the Transport Accident Investigation Commission has found.

The bus became stuck on two of the three sets of tracks and could not be freed by the driver who tried several methods, said the report.

There was also not enough "stacking distance" for the bus, or other vehicles longer than 10 meters to stop at the intersection and remain clear of the clear of the tracks, the commission found.

Another 251 crossings have similar stacking distance issues.

The report has made a number of recommendations about the layout, profile and stacking distance issues at the Beach Rd crossing and others around the country as a result of the investigation to improve safety.

It also said drivers of large road vehicles should should carry the National Train Control Centre emergency telephone number so they can alert the train controller in any similar situation.

More in the Herald: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news

Peter’s Piece

The New Zealand Transport Agency and the rail operator appear not to be on the same planet as drivers of commercial vehicles.

There is a law requiring drivers of buses, and trucks carrying dangerous goods, to stop before crossing tracks that do not have alarms and barrier arms, but at most crossings that is impractical and dangerous.

At many crossings, once a large vehicle is stopped the driver is unable to get a clear view of the tracks. With many crossings a driver can have a good view while approaching but can be blind once stopped because of crossing angles and obstructions.

The law for trucks and buses at railway crossings should be the same as for cars. 

HIGHWAY AMERICA

SOLAR-POWERED FLIGHT

Electric Airplane Maker Unveils Solar-Charging Trailer

By Jason Paur  Email Author  September 12, 2012 

 The German electric airplane maker PC-Aero is at the Berlin Air Show this week unveiling its latest effort towards making sport flying not only solar powered, but mobile as well. The company’s Elektra One is a single-seat electric airplane that uses both batteries and solar cells to increase the endurance during flight and is capable of flying more than 100 miles per hour.

The airplane made its first flight in 2011 in the hands of veteran test pilot Jon Karkow. Designed by Calin Gologan, the Elektra One is part of a bigger package Gologan imagines will one day lead to pilots being able to fly without needing an external power source.

PC-Aero has been touting the idea of a solar hangar that could be used to keep the Elektra One for a few years now. The design would include enough solar panels to provide 2.4 kilowatts of charging. Now the company is expanding, or at least mobilizing, the idea of a solar hangar as a power source.

The company’s new solar trailer builds on the long-standing tradition of sailplane pilots who usually store and transport their gliders in trailers. Like many electric airplane designs, the Elektra One borrows heavily from the sailplane world with high aspect ratio wings and lightweight composite structures. The wings are easily detachable, so it’s logical to keep the airplane in a trailer, eliminating the need for an expensive hangar at an airport.

The trailer is designed to have the same 2.4 kW peak power capability as the hangar. Gologan believes this kind of electricity generation could provide up to 300 hours of flying in the Elektra One per year based on the sunshine available in southern Germany (which is far from a sun-drenched desert).

Gologan is aiming for some impressive performance numbers as well. The airplane can fly at more than 100 miles per hour, but he’s hoping for a cruise speed of around 90 miles per hour and a range of up to 600 miles. Though the speed is likely to be even less in order to achieve that level of range. The company says almost half of the airplane’s power requirements will come from solar cells that are laminated into the top of the aircraft.

At last year’s NASA Green Flight Challenge, a few of the competitors did manage to fly for more than two hours while maintaining 100 miles per hour, so the goals for the Elektra One are possible. Though most electric airplanes that have flown so far aren’t quite getting the same kind of range, including the small electric powered ultra light we flew back in 2010. But recent improvements to the Elektra One including reducing the airframe weight, could help the company achieve the ambitious goals of flying for several hours at a time on electricity generated from the airplane’s own travel trailer.

PC-Aero hopes to certify the Elektra One in Germany by the end of this year.

More on: http://www.wired.com

Peter’s Comment

Solar powered aircraft have been around for a few years now and have made some incredible flights.

In 1981 Solar Challenger, designed by Paul MacCready, made the first solar-powered flight across the English Channel.

The first through the night solar flight (26 hours and 9 minutes) was made in Switzerland by Andre Borschberg in 2011 in Solar Impulse. The aircraft climbed to 28,000 feet while charging the batteries and descended slowly on reduced power until sunrise and landed after making a second climb to altitude, proving that continuous solar flight was possible.

SHARES VERSUS PROPERTY

Investment:
Research pumps shares

By Tamsyn Parker Wednesday Sep 12, 2012 NZ Herald

Grosvenor director Peter Christensen says a $10,000 investment in New Zealand shares
in 1971 would have been worth $787, 128 at the end of last years. Photo / Richard Robinson

Study finds 40-year return on stocks more than twice that of property

Investors would have been more than two times better off putting their money into the local share market than residential property over the past 40 years, according to research by KiwiSaver provider Grosvenor Financial Services Group.

Grosvenor director Peter Christensen says a $10,000 investment in New Zealand shares in 1971 would have been worth $787,128 at the end of last year - an average of 11.2 per cent growth a year. The same amount of money invested in houses would have grown to $367,352 - an average annual return of 9.2 per cent.

Christensen said historically investors had favored property investment and many were convinced it offered higher returns for a lower risk.

"However, long-term data proves shares and equities consistently outperform property as [an] investment," he said.

But property investor Olly Newland said it was very difficult to base returns from property on average prices.

He suggested investors would do better to compare the performance of the top 50 suburbs rather than the median price across all property as that meant including small towns.

If the median price of all houses were used, then Newland said a comparison should be made with all listed companies including the small penny-dreadful stocks.

Grosvenor researcher David Beatty said it could not use the figures from all listed stocks as the All Ordinaries index did not go back far enough.

"The NZX50 is the most quoted figure when it came to the share- market and the most used by investment experts," he said.

Beatty said he did not believe including all listed companies would change the figure much.

But Andrew King, president of the Property Investors Federation, said the comparison was flawed and the research was marketing for shares.

"They don't take into account rental income but will take into account dividends on shares," he said.

King added that banks would not lend on shares while they would lend money on property.

"For $10,000 you could buy a $50,000 property back in 1971 and the returns would be a lot higher."

Beatty said the survey had not included rental income in its investment return from property because it was difficult to find reliable data going back to 1971. It was also decided that a lot of rental income was eaten up by the costs associated with property.

Christensen said he was not anti-property, he just wanted people to diversify their investments.

"The message is any wise investor will go into a spread of different asset classes," he said. "By investing in other asset classes you can get a better return than just property . . . . “

More in the Herald: http://www.nzherald.co.nz

Peter’s Comment

Shares have several distinct advantages over residential property and not all the advantages have been shown above.

For example, investing in shares allows a greater spread of investment dollars. For the price of one house an investor can have shares in dozens of listed companies, in a number of industries, or in many countries. It’s an old rule: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. And a house is an expensive basket.

The New Zealand Tour Commentary

Also, if you need the cash, or you see a better opportunity elsewhere, a house usually takes months to sell and reach settlement and the fees take a huge bite out of the proceeds.

Shares can be traded online in minutes and the proceeds banked within three days. That makes it possible to use the highs and lows in the market and individual companies to pick up quick profits over and above those shown in the 11.2% above. It is this trading for quick profit strategy that makes shares the most attractive place for money with sharp investors making an extra 10-20% a year.

Others prefer to just invest and wait for it to grow while banking, or reinvesting, the dividends.

Naturally, an investor would steer clear of a company that could be vulnerable to an unexpected three month period without income (unless it was a seasonal business). But a residential property investor faces that prospect all the time. The tenant may suddenly leave and it could take three months to find another tenant, or worse six months to repair the damage.

True, a company could have an unexpected loss of income due to a strike, fire or other forced closure. But the wise investor has many other small investments and one company faltering or even failing completely will have little effect on the overall portfolio. Spreading the risk is like free insurance.

I suggest that a reason for not including rental income in the figures above is that it is so widely variable. Often with residential property after one allows for repairs, rates and periods without a tenant, there is little or no net income.