Ah! News about the McTrump franchise, you know, that condo project that was all sold out but then needed a capital injection through a bond issue about which little is known. Now it turns out that some kangaroo court in our splendid republic has saved the McTrump illusion from another major setback: The Design Is NOT, we repeat, NOT stolen from the famous Burj Al-Arab hotel in Dubai. Just look at the two pictures: Where would anyone get such an idea? Aren't these two buildings TOTALLY different? Okay, both are shaped after a sail. It looks like one and the same sail. But who says they really are the same sails? Two oceanfront buildings both designed after sails and both in real estate boom locations - this is OBVIOUSLY just a coincidence, no? Anyway, who do these Arabs think they are, accusing a respectable Bananama real estate developer of ripping their design under the leased banner of Donald Trump, we ask you?

The kangaroo court has also ruled that the Arabs can't and shouldn't and won't be allowed to publish anything alleging that McTrump Club (the left pic) is just a pirated copy, a fake Vuitton bag, a cheap, ugly and plump made-in-China rip-off of the elegant Dubai original. So we won't say that either because we deeply respect Bananama's kangaroo courts and our long standing tradition of copyright theft. And the thing will probably never be finished anyway.

Cable & Wireless a/k/a Cable & Useless a/k/a Cable & Shameless, you know, that rogue bunch of shady telecom pirates who stole INTEL from the Panamanian people to screw everybody with higher prices and lousy service and inventing the 40 second minute - these people are now snooping on your email and even censoring it!

Where's the proof, you ask. Here's the proof. Eric Jackson of The Panama News has maintained for ages a newslist, people who like to receive updates by email whenever a new issue of the online paper sees the light. Has never been a problem, always worked fine, until today. When Jackson sent out an update this morning, the subscribers who use Cable & Brainless as their provider never received it because, says Cable & Gutless, the "message content is not acceptable here". Of course they hide behind some sort of anti-spam firewall bullshit filter, which is just another tool for internet censorship, because the message obviously wasn't spam but a mailing to subscribers. Here's what came back from Cable & Clueless:

This is the Spam Firewall at antispam.cwpanama.net.

I'm sorry to inform you that the message below could not be delivered.
When delivery was attempted, the following error was returned.

: host 201.225.225.165[201.225.225.165] said: 579 message content is not acceptable here (in reply to end of DATA command) Final-Recipient: rfc822; xx@cwpanama.net Action: failed Status: 5.0.0 Diagnostic-Code: X-Spam-Firewall; host 201.225.225.165 [201.225.225.165] said: 579 message content is not acceptable here (in reply to end of DATA command) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Eric Jackson" To: "The Panama News email list" Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 11:51:30 -0500 Subject: most of the culture section and all of the Spanish opinions are up See http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_14/issue_09/culture_01.html et seq and http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_14/issue_09/opiniones_01.html et seq (Still have the gallery guide to do in the culture section)

Spam? A newspaper update? Are you serious? Does this happen to the mass mailings to subscribers of La Prensa as well? We bet you it doesn't. The robber barons of Cable & Shameless are just blatantly snooping on email content and censoring delivery of those messages they deem "unacceptable". Will they start doing the same with your cellphone and drop calls or text messages with content they declare "not acceptable"? We wouldn't be surprised. After all, it wouldn be the first time they get caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Offshore scammer
Marc Boswell
a/k/a Rex Freeman

There is a standard procedure for crooks on the lam being confronted with arrest warrants and other documents placing them in an unfavorable light: Just deny it. Claim that it's a fake. This is what noni swindler Tom McMurrain did and this is what offshore hustler Marc Boswell does. Both were being supported in these efforts by scam promoter Don Winner. McMurrain ended up being hauled off to jail, and there's no doubt the same faith awaits Boswell/Freeman - and eventually Don Winner, because you can't just go around stealing, threatening people, abusing Panama's legal system and promoting all sorts of scams without eventually being held accountable. Not even in Bananama.

Meanwhile, what if?

What if a small group of financial service providers in Panama - not the flimflam bullshitters who advertise on Don Winner's website but reputable ones - had decided that it is time for Mr. Boswell and Mr. Winner to leave (for the greener pastures of a Costa Rican jail) and stop tainting Panama's financial sector with their shenanigans? What if they put together some money to make that happen? Wouldn't that be interesting?

In other words, Rex, are you ready to enter Costa Rica again "through the front door"?

Scam O'Rama Muppets:
Don Winner a/k/a Donnie Wanker (left)
and Marc Boswell a/k/a Rex Freeman (right)
Oh, and in the background: All Clinton's
work, according to Freeman/Boswell

Time for some good old fashioned wild west fun. Remember Ian Calvert Bleasdale? No? Child sex rapist on the run. Turned up as sales director of mega noni swindle in Panama which Don Winner of course defended. Story here. Also wanted for fraud in Costa Rica and that's what did him in. A couple of his victims just a sort of nabbed him in Panama and handed him over to the police and he was swiftly thrown over the border into the Costa Rican slammer, where he belonged. The end? No. Well, for him, yes, but now we have a similar case. Scam artist on the lam. Buys residency despite criminal convictions. Trouble in Costa Rica where he continued to scam before moving to a welcoming Panama. Becomes Don Winner's drinking buddy and financial columnist. Well, not for long, sucker! Because there is an Arrest Warrant! Panama doesn't want to enforce its laws? No problemo! It's only a matter of time before his victims hunt him down and throw him in a van headed for Costa Rica. Yes we can! Bye, Rex! We would appreciate a tip though when it goes down, for the pics. Oh, and Don Winner? We think that one more case like this and he's toast too. You can't just run a full-fledged pimp-a-scam and expect there won't be repercussions. Bye, Don!

Blah blah! There's a buzz in the air around Panama... yada yada... downtown glamour... booming economy.... puke, Sandra Snyder... glittering skyscrapers... money laundering haven ...a natural candidate and the next best market for the outstanding service, insider knowledge and exclusive access that Quintessentially can provide. Quintessentially Panama will launch with a tropical party – the first of its kind – in early 2008.

The party was yesterday, sponsored by the McTrump condo flippers club. Quintessentially is a sort of Club Union for foreign yuppies and snobs with too much money and not enough brains to know what to do with it.

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Here's another crazy insight into the wicked minds of Panama's ever expanding tourism sector. First they want beachfront land. They've been buying and driving up prices everywhere. Beach is nice, beach is tropical, beach it had to be. But then it turns out that they don't want to actually use the beach. Sand in your ears, creepy animals, dirty water. How to solve this problem without relocating the whole resort? Simple. Build a new beach behind the other one!

The picture is from Chile, but this is what the Playa Blanca resort is planning on the Pacific coast, reports Casey Halloran, who is one of the few tourism entrepreneurs not living in Lalaland:

Panama never got the memo: giant hotels are out, boutique hotels and eco-projects are IN.

In yet another move that supports the common belief here in Panama that when it comes to beach projects, “gaudy-is-good”, the Playa Blanca resort project is promoting plans to construct the second largest swimming pool in the world.

(...)

Three cheers for Panama — the new, 1970’s Hawaii!

I thought Panamanian tourism minister Ruben Blades contracted fancy studies and engineered a “Tourism Master Plan” to prevent this type of schmaltz?

Read the whole post, here.

We knew it. Ruben Blades is a human rights violator and so are these tourists in their Hawaii shirts and baseball caps. Tourism projects (and other projects by friends of Torrijos et al such as mines and hydroelectric dams) mushrooming all over the country cause displacement of citizens and violate their right to a place to live. It also damages the environment, as we're seeing in Tonosi today. We don't make that up, it's in a new report published by the Panamanian Human Rights Network which unites about 32 civil organizations and groups. They made the report because the government doesn't comply with its obligation to file annual reports with the UN about Human Rights. We the People!

The report spans the period from 1992 to 2008 and lists numerous other creative ways the Bananama officials have developed to trample our rights. They don't protect refugees. There is discrimination against the handicapped. Children rights are violated. And of course the famous prisons system. The human rights situation in Panama is, in short, a big fucking mess and they haven't even listed everything. Does anyone in the government care? Ruben Blades has a new album out, did you know that?

Make a 100% return on your investment! Annual returns of 20% per year! Panama Real Estate is BOOMING! Porn stars are waiting on every street corner just for YOU! Get rich quick! Depression? Economic down? Panama is outside of the hurricane zone! We will NOT be affected! This is the best high yield retirement opportunity we've seen in 20 years! Don't miss out on this one! Buy NOW! Did I tell you about how YOU can make 20% on your investment per year? Yes you can! Just give us your money! Everything positive that you read about Panama is True! Everybody is Happy here! Get in on the groundfloor and then move UP! We'll give you a free seminar on how to lose your money how to get in on this ONCE in a lifetime opportunity! Returns of 100% and 200% in less than 5 years! Get RICH Quick! Protect your wealth! Put your money in an offshore thing that we can then steal is BULLET PROOF! We'll sell you everything you need and MORE! Bullshit still exists!

Don Winner, here sporting the latest
in wanker fashion

Wanker - whom we just found dabbles in some weird safety shit these days - comes out today with a story that he tells in such a complicated fashion that we can't figure it out. Something with diamonds and investments and it's all a scam and it was done by Florida gardening people from Panama.

Where it gets hilarious is where he starts bullying a guy called Ciprian, who owns a Romanian web hosting company, for putting up websites for the scheme:

In talking to Ciprian on the phone be pleaded ignorance to anything illegal that the Spillers might be doing with the websites that he has set up for them. In an reality there is no way he could know what they are doing with the money, how they are handling the books, and if they are breaking the law or not. And that sounded good until I started finding websites in Polish that were pumping Udachu investments. So sorry, Ciprian, I no longer buy the "I don't know anything" story. And the next time I'm in Bacau City I'll look you up.

Oh my God, now he goes to Romania to attack some innocent guy with his stun gun and take pictures of his children!

But the really, totally "dumb gringo" part is this: He implies that because websites were in Polish, Ciprian would have known what the content was. But Polish is a Slavic language while Romanian is a - as the name a sort of implies - Roman language and they have absolutely nothing in common whatsoever. Great investigative work, Wacko Donnie!

Indeed. Bye.

We TOLD YOU SO and you heard it here first: The Canal Expansion project is in trouble. Proof: El Panama America starts the spin that will gradually familiarize us with higher costs, stupid financing - in short everything the opponents of the plan predicted. They have set aside funds for inflation, calculated at 2% per year. In reality it's FOUR TIMES as high: 8% per year. We already told you about machinery that doesn't work. Read our lips: The Canal Expansion is in deep shit.

UPDATE: More preparation-for-the-worst spin in La Prensa.

Dark tales reach us from within the Panama Canal Authority. First, there is this backlog in getting ships through, about a 100 ships are waiting. The pilots can't be transported fast enough, there are not enough lanchas, the road to Colon is a mess and so on.

But that's not all. We also hear that the works on the expansion of the Canal are going slower than planned. A whole bunch of heavy machinery that was brought in with a lot of fanfare is standing idle because they're broken. Financing problems, high inflation. And an economic down is looming. There's even rumor of the ACP having to postpone the whole project. Or, as the opponents of the bizarre plan would say: "We told you so!"

Remember? This is how Robert E. Baker, the charismatic yet ultra conservative president of the American Chamber of Commerce & Industry of Panama, explained poverty last year in the Latin Business Chronicle for those dumb people who failed to see the bright side of it all:

If you have to walk to school each day, as many of our parents did, does that mean you are poor? There are thousands of children in the countryside of Panama who walk to school every day and they do not consider themselves poor. In fact, they seem quite happy and also appear to be in excellent health. Typically, when they get home from school their mother or father is there waiting for them. In this case, is it good to be poor because you get more quality time with your parents? We might consider the kids of a first-world country who arrive home to an empty house to be poor because they have no mother or father to welcome them with a warm hug and a kiss.

Of course he's right. There's nothing against a bit of barefoot walking for poor children. Look at these healthy and happy feet!

Not healthy enough for you? More after the jump:

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