David Southwell

The History of Organized Crime is a fascinating insight into many previously hidden aspects of the underworld. From the mysterious origins of the Sicilian Mafia, Japanese Yakuza, and the Chinese Triads to the new emerging global powers in organized crime including the Russian Organizatsiya and the Mexican Cartels, this explosive investigation reveals the past, present, and future of organized crime. From the back streets of London to neon-soaked Las Vegas, organized crime is the worlds biggest and most profitable business. A truly global enterprise, no country can claim to be free from the taint of this ever-growing threat to established society. Tackling the crimes, methods, and key figures in the worlds largest and most powerful outlaw organizations, this book traces the evolution of organized crime in chilling, entertaining and compelling detail.… (lisätietoja)

I can't help observing that lately Australians have been dying in very odd ways.

There is the girl who died scuba diving in Queensland. Her American husband had evidently been planning this for some time. He'd been hassling her about getting a life insurance policy and so most recently, knowing she hadn't but wanting to say whatever would get him off her case, she said yes she had. And so he murdered her in a way will never happen to me. Honestly, take note now. If I am ever found dead scuba diving I have been murdered. Please investigate. He is in gaol in Australia but is being extradited to the US, one hopes to a worse gaol term than he got here.

Last week Australian twins were at a shooting range in the US and fell out of their booth simultaneously with gun shots to the head. It turned out to be a suicide pact but one of them took better aim than the other. Because they were identical the authorities couldn't even tell which one was dead. Eventually the one that shot badly came to consciousness in hospital. She is pretty irritated at how things have turned out. The girls were in their late twenties and to all intents and purposes normal, whatever that means. Evidently they had a particular interest in the Columbine massacre.

Zarah, the poor sweet thing. Her mother gave her up early to her husband. Then it was discovered she had serious cancer which resulted in deafness and an artifical leg. Her father met an American woman on the internet, took Zarah with him to take up life with this woman in the US. The step-mother has, I gather, chopped Zarah up into pieces and then pretended to police via a fake ransom note that she was kidnapped. At least the others were old enough to know what they were doing and have some control over their lives. Doesn't your heart go out to Zarah, though? A horrible life followed by a horrible death.

I wonder if it is just coincidence that there is an American connection to all these things?… (lisätietoja)

The world's greatest conspiracy theories are reviewed, rehashed, and regurgitated - all rather weakly. Oh, there's plenty to go through in this book from JFK's assassination to Roswell to Elvis to secret societies, and so on. It's just that there's not much substance to any of the information in the 1-3 pages that the authors spend dissecting each of the various theories. Kind of like looking at that big bag of potato chips when you're really hungry, scarfing half of the bag down, and then coming away feeling really empty. Oddly (or maybe not), in about half of the stories, the "suspects" behind the conspiracies seem to be either Freemasons, aliens, the CIA, the US military, or the Mafia.
Move along: not much to see here.… (lisätietoja)