Besides the fact that electronic payments may be a trifle difficult to setup and the facts that asking for someone’s account number may be a hassle or an invasion of privacy, there is also this small problem of security. In order for me (or for someone else) to make a payment to a third party, all you need is: my name: Amrinder Arora, my account number, and possibly my address. My address is available at a few places, so I have no false hopes of it being secure information.

So, if you were to ask for my account number (to send money TO my account), you can also use the account number later (to send money FROM my account).

This should be troubling to everyone, although you may have observed that when you make a payment to a third party by using a check, they frequently simple take the information from the check and make an electronic payment to themselves.

The safeguard that is missing is that the outgoing payments do not require any pin or other secret information. This is the way most bank payments are made in the Europe, where you need a PIN, and possibly also a matrix code or a signature.

Another way to think about is that you need the same information (my account number) to send money TO me, as you need to send FROM me. This symmetry is a problem. If I had a different account number to receive money, then I could just publish it. When I need to send money, I could then use my sending account number.

• 10IS ROX
  Indeed it does. And with Novak Djokovic so far ahead in rankings right now, and with no US player in top 15, these are some interesting times.
• 2LV LV LF
  To live, love life.
  Also, to love, live life.
  Not to mention, to love, love file.

So the real question here is who do you want in your kitchen? The government, who will take your wallet and freedom? Or the food industry who’ve already taken your wallet, your freedom and your health?

My son Roman’s drawing. Now, isn’t that a nice piece of art?

There are many indications that the said general was not entirely interested in making a big deal out of his biography. But due to some very savory details surrounding his biography, the deal about his biography grew and grew, until it all exploded in an abundant shower much to the delight of media, not unlike a white Christmas, enveloping most of our great nation.

Conspiracy theorists thrive on such incidences where weakness of other human beings (or strength, if we were to look at it from a different perspective) lead them to be sucked into the hollowness of a situation that can be considered spilling with iniquity and excitement.

But rather than playing a cheap double entendre, this situation allows us to explore the long-standing question – Is the New World different from the Old World? The answer again lies in the affirmative. In good old France, the good general would have already received offers to be the next presidential candidate, a movie hero (as opposed to just a real hero), and a standing invitation to those admirable parties thrown by the Italian. The good biographer would have already dropped her guard and accepted an offer to be in the next month’s issue of the ever dependable journalism outputs and the French men and women would have been engaged in a bitter debate around whether or not there is a certain je ne se qua about her, of if the general is guilty of poor standards. (I say his standards are fine.) In lowlands of Amsterdam and Hamburg, this would be a perfect occasion to celebrate the free spirit of those cities, and in Bavaria, a reason to get another beer, bitte, so we can discuss it a bit more. And in Italy, the couples in their tristesse moments would argue whether this supposed act really did happen or if it is merely a lie conjured up by the media to dull the pain caused by that 4-0 loss.

But only a complete socialist or a commie could miss the financial perspective on the development and timing of this scandal. Much like the months between the Julius and Augustus, the months between the presidential election and the inauguration are typically a silly season. Especially, after the media has lost all its remaining aces after repeated prevarications and projections of a close election that finishes at 323-206. So, call those publishing houses money crazy, attention craving, immoral bastards, but what are they supposed to do? They have mortgages to pay, don’t they?