loophole

Business Times - 10 Jul 2008 Bay window loophole slammed shut by URA Developers will now have to include planter boxes, bay windows in GFA By KALPANA RASHIWALA (SINGAPORE) Here's some bad news for developers: a loophole that helped them sell in excess of the gross floor area (GFA) has been plugged.Till now, bay windows and planter boxes, which often make up around 5 per cent of a condo's saleable

Understanding The Enron Loophole What McCain Doesn't Want You To Known Phil Gramm is McCain's chief economic adviser. Gram played a key role in passing legislation that let Enron trade commodities on ...

Keith Olbermann delivered a special report Wednesday on the "Enron loophole" -- a regulatory gap that is the single greatest cause of out-of-control gasoline prices -- and how McCain's leading advisors created that loophole. John McCain voted to close the Enron loophole in 2002 and 2003, but during this election he's never mentioned it.read more | digg story

Another great utterance I hear coming out of parents’ mouths is that wonderful little disciplinary sentence tag “okay?”Like: “I need you to please be quiet, okay?” or “The dog doesn’t need Tabasco sauce on his Gravy Train, okay?” or “Don’t poke the baby with your fork anymore, okay?”Why do we do this?Is this meant as an attempt to get down and relate to their kids at their le

by Terry Carter* Oh yes, there's more... So far this Lonely Planet thing is a mess of contradictions and odd confessions. Surely the guy who photocopied and stapled together the first copies of a Lonely Planet guide by hand on his kitchen table will come to the rescue and sort out this nonsense once and for all. Cue Lonely Planet co-founder and travel industry legend, Tony Wheeler: …accepting

By Terry Carter* Hallelujah! On the weekend The Age in Melbourne cleared up the whole Lonely Planet scandal. Thank god ,that’s over. Yes, we were getting bored with it too. But it’s over now. In the words of Lonely Planet publisher Piers Pickard: “No freebies — period.” Thank you and goodnight! What? Oh, wait, there is a caveat? Quotes from the story in italics, folks. Are there exceptions? He (

The Windows expert who originally speculated that Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) deliberately included a 'trick' in Windows Vista that lets users install the OS from the upgrade version on Wednesday defended his position.Earlier this month, the Windows Secrets ...

The concept of loophole government came to me while reading a recent New Yorker piece on the photographer/soldiers who took the infamous pictures at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The reason Sabrina Harman and the other photographers cite for both their abuse of Iraqi prisoners and their photographic obsession is as enlightening as it is chilling: Although they did not know it at the time, the lack of experience and training in handling prisoners in wartime made the soldiers of the 372nd ideally suited to Abu Ghraib, where almost nothing was run according to military doctrine. Since May, 2003, America’s war in Iraq had been waged as a chapter in the war on terror, and the military’s long-standing rules for running prisons in wartime had largely been ignored. By midsummer, the great majorit

The Games Gamblers Play: Casino Gambling 101 Casino gambling. The first thing that enters our mind is Vegas, slot machines, bright lights and chips. If you’re not a gambling person and you don’t know a lot about casino gambling, then read on… According to the Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia, a casino is a building that accommodates [...]

Barack Obama and John Kerry Thursday announced plans "to propose legislation that would prohibit companies like KBR from exploiting tax havens to avoid payroll taxes. The reform will close the loophole that recently has allowed the defense contractor KBR Inc. to fleece the American taxpayer by almost $100 million a year."read more | digg story

–My Fox Providence Rhode Island — In Rhode Island, there is a loophole in the law that essentially allows prostitution- as long as it takes place indoors. There have been efforts to change this in the past, but they have [...]

A Loophole For Paid Link It seems it was only a matter of time before the cleverer element of the SEO world developed a workaround for Google’s penalizing of paid links. The workaround involves a pretty creative “dynamic” linking strategy, and it’s playing a little bit dirty. No longer the province of tax accountants, lawyers, and politicians, [...]

 Google intends to start looking for domain names that are repeatedly registered and dropped within a five-day grace period for full refunds. This would help make it less lucrative for anyone to tie up millions of Internet addresses using a loophole and make them inaccessible to legitimate individuals and businesses. Google’s AdSense program would exclude those [...]

As many of you already know there is a very juicy loophole in the federal tax code that allows for a gargantuan exclusion ($250,000 for a single homeowner, $500,000 for a couple) of the gain from the sale of a principle residence from traditional taxation, so long as the taxpaying homeowner had used the property as a primary residence for an “aggregate” of 2 years of the 5 years prior to the sale.The “aggregate” language in the tax code is important as it allows for the flexibility of using the property for other purposes (such as a vacation home or a rental property) during the 5 years prior to the sale but still meet the residency requirement as long as the time the property had been used as a primary residence totals 2 years.To say that this WAS an important tax loophole for lower to middle income as well as affluent homeowners is an understatement as the notion of such a large tax free capital gain likely greatly contributed to the excitement seen in residential real estate

Shortly after iTunes 7.4 was released, users were greeted by the discovery of a MacRumors forum user which revealed a way to sync custom ringtones to your iPhone for free, simply by renaming files. Immediately following was a great deal of speculation as to whether this "loophole" was left open by Apple intentionally, or if it was a rookie-like mistake.Unfortunately, the latter seems to be the case. Within 24 hours of releasing iTunes 7.4, users were alerted to the availability of iTunes 7.4.1. Much to the chagrin of some, iTunes 7.4.1 no longer allows the free ringtone workaround. Instead, users are greeted by a message which informs them that their renamed ringtone track "was not copied to the iPhone ... because it cannot be played on this iPhone". By in large, there's considerable dissapointment from the iPhone community. Sure, no one likes free stuff given and then taken away, but the complaint seems to be more in regards to rapid nature of Apple's response to the ringtone loopho

Using a loophole in a winamp plugin, you can download and burn music from Napster for free.Steps: 1. Download and install Napster, sign up for 14 day free trial. 2. Download and install Winamp 3. Download and install the Winamp Plug-in Output Stacker 4. Open Winamp Options->Plug-ins->Output->Dietmar’s Output Stacker->Configure 5. Add out_ds.dll from Winamp/Plug-ins folder 6. Add out_disk.dll from Winamp/Plug-ins folder 7. Select out_disk.dll in the Output Stacker->Configure 8. Set the output directory and output file mode to Force WAV file 9. Exit preferences 10. Load downloaded Napster protected WMAs into your Winamp playlist 11. Press play and each file will be converted to WAV as it plays 12. Burn WAVs to CD with your favorite burning programs.Note: 1. This is not tested (due to lack of time) 2. Found this in a text file on a public PC. (so email me if u know its real source)

As we are all well aware, a good credit score is an important asset to possess. Not only does a good credit score save you thousands on interests payments, it is also an essential item needed to qualify for most loans.It order to help out close friends and family (usually children), people put a specific person on their credit card as an “authorized user.” An authorized user is authorized to use the card, but is not liable for the card’s debt. Before recently, credit card reporting companies (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax) did not distinguish between the original card holder’s credit record and the authorized user’s record. Therefore, for example, if the original cardholder had a flawless ten year record on a particular card, the authorized user receives the benefit of this flawless record regardless of the length of time the authorized user is on the card. The benefit to the authorized user is huge. These benefits to the authorized user’s report could boost his/h

Who do want to own today? Windows Vista may be Microsoft’s most secure operating system to date, but researchers are still finding some glaring loopholes for hackers to exploit. Here is the latest: all you need is a Vista Install DVD to get admin level access to a hard drive.… Read more…

Internet chatrooms run by Skype, the online telephone giant, have become a magnet for paedophiles and sexual predators who want to groom children as young as 10 for sex, an investigation has found. The software, which enables users to make free phone calls and also “chat” by typing messages while online, has become [...]

I found out about this NY Times article, “U.S. Seeks Closing of Visa Loophole for Britons,” when I was called by a senior producer for the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) in England who asked me if I was aware of the article. He asked if I would be willing to do an on-air interview about [...]

Governor Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) has closed the loophole that allowed Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech killer, to buy his two guns despite being ruled a danger to society.Kaine issued an executive order requiring that a database of people who are prohibited from buying guns include anyone found to be dangerous and ordered to undergo involuntary mental health treatment.I know it may seem like it's stupid this didn't already exist, and I know it doesn't bring back the 32 people lost, or heal the wounds that will last a lifetime, but this is how society progresses. It learns from it's mistakes and changes itself to adapt.Also, Governor Kaine says he expects Virginia's Republican controlled legislature to show some support to legislation requiring background checks for sales at gun shows. Similar legislation, supported by the Governor, has consistently died in the General Assembly.

The Hill: With campaign finance loophole, Romney’s wealth cannot be matchedExcerpt:"An inconsistency in campaign-finance rules places former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) in an advantageous position should he decide to subsidize his White House run with his own fortune.Romney’s personal assets reportedly exceed $500 million, and he has shown willingness to self-finance. He already has loaned himself more than $2 million to help kick-start his campaign. His top opponents for the GOP nomination, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, are not nearly as wealthy.Should Romney inject more of his own money into his campaign, McCain, Giuliani and others would be unable to take advantage of a provision in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that allows congressional candidates to accept contributions in excess of usual limits when facing a wealthy self-funding opponent.The so-called “Millionaires’ Amendment,” a component of campaign legislat

By Kevin Bogardus April 18, 2007 An inconsistency in campaign-finance rules places former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) in an advantageous position should he decide to subsidize his White House run with his own fortune. Romney’s personal assets reportedly exceed $500 million, and he has shown willingness to self-finance. He already has loaned himself more than $2 million [...]

New scientific research may close a major loophole in the RNA world hypothesis, the idea that ribonucleic acid - not the fabled DNA that makes up genes in people and other animals - was the key to life's emergence on Earth 4.6 billion years ago. That hypothesis states that RNA catalyzed all the biochemical reactions necessary to produce living organisms. Only later were those self-replicating RNA units joined by organisms based on DNA, which evolved into more advanced forms of life. But how did ribonucleic acid appear? Scientists have shown that other organic compounds can form spontaneously under conditions believed to exist on the primordial Earth. The University of Manchester's John D. Sutherland and colleagues point out, however, that no plausible prebiotic synthesis of ribonucleotides, the components of RNA, has been reported. His group offers the large part of such a potential synthesis in an article scheduled for the Jan. 17 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Societ

Believe it or not, there are ways to convert taxable income into non-taxable income, without any fear of an IRS audit. Here's one of my favorites. It's been part of our beloved tax code for over 30 years, yet many still don't take advantage of it. What am I talking about? The IRA -- Individual Retirement Account. Now, before you say, "Oh, I know all about that one; what's so great about an

Will terrorists always enter through main gate?Most of our buildings are guarded heavily at the main entrance, but are scarcely manned at rest of the places. If someone is determined to trespass and create trouble he can enter the premises from many places other than the main entrance and our security should be tightened to handle this.For example, Bangalore airport is partially surrounded with Wind Tunnel Road, a publicly accessible road which is separated from the runway by a thin wall. Any semi skilled person who can jump the wall or break it can hit the runway directly. Similarly, Hyderabad Airport is also surrounded by slums and public road, again making it vulnerable.What is the response time needed by our security forces to respond from the moment they spot an intruder on the runway? I'm not sure, but if it is more than a minute, that's too much of time for someone to create trouble.If it can go wrong, it will go wrong. We need to be prepared to handle this.Previous Post: Se

Just because I can't post about bodily functions on my blog doesn't mean I can't post about them somewhere else...Don't say I didn't warn you. Head on over to my secret clubhouse for my daily musings on gas.

{mosgoogle right}A loophole in the drug laws has allowed a growing number of people to buy marijuana seeds on the Internet for cultivation.Last year, police confirmed 184 incidents of growing marijuana plants, more than four times the figure 10 years ago, according to the National Police Agency (NPA).The Cannabis Control Law bans people from growing marijuana plants, but has no clause outlawing the possession of seeds."It's possible for anyone to sell and buy [...]

According to CNET, Motorola’s popular clamshell-RAZR is vulnerable from attacks. Specifically from a JPEG image via MMS that requires downloading, that could be used to run malicious code on the phone.