Be innovative! Be creative! The Blind Boy.

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet.

He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, please help."

There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by.

He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat.

He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words.

He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy.

That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were.

The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?"

The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way."

I wrote: "Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it."

Both signs told people that the boy was blind.

But the first sign simply said the boy was blind.

The second sign told people that they were so lucky that they were not blind.

Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story:

Be thankful for what you have.

Be creative. Be innovative.. Think differently and positively

.
When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile.

Face your past without regret.

Handle your present with confidence.

Prepare for the future without fear.

Keep the faith and drop the fear.

Just think God is Near!

God Bless you and your family.

From a friend to a friend.
The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling.

And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!

Date-Rape Drug... Learn about it!

This report appeared on Asiaone online news story.
It tells about the dangers of receiving a business card from strangers while
you are the lone driver in your car.
I have received many emails with different angles to this story but all stressed the same thing...
" Be extra careful about strangers offering you their business cards which could be laced with
this powerful chemical or drug. "

ASIAONE / NEWS / ASIAONE NEWS / MALAYSIA / STORY

Mon, Apr 19, 2010 New Straits Times

Emails on rape drug 'make sense'
By Ben Tan

JOHOR BARU:
Ever heard of burundanga?
It's not the name of a bird but a potent date rape drug. Stories about the drug are spreading like wildfire in cyberspace through the personal emails of Malaysians and Singaporeans.

The forwarded emails are of victims or near victims of rapes and date rapes that warn the public to beware of criminals using business cards laced with burundanga.
Most of the time, the forwarded emails gave a scenario at the carpark area at popular hypermarkets in major cities, especially here at night.

It starts with a stranger coming up to a victim, usually a lone woman, and knocking on the driver's window on the pretext of giving her his business card.
When the victim winds down the window and takes the burundanga-soaked card from the man, she begins feeling dizzy and numb mere minutes later. The man will follow her car closely and take advantage of her once she loses consciousness.

However, the emails also have different variants where the victims managed to drive away, but still feel faint or with some even sounding their horn loudly in panic.
Johor police chief Datuk Mokhtar Shariff said like many other stories and urban legends circulating in cyberspace, the burundanga emails played on the public's fear.
"Most of the time they tell of alleged close calls with the criminals and not actual crimes.
They are mainly an 'entertaining' sort of cautionary tale."
Mokhtar said state police had not received any reports with regard to burundanga.
But he acknowledged that the emails did serve a purpose in that it was a warning.
"It has a lot of common sense whereby lone females should not accept anything, including business cards, from strangers," he said, adding that the public must learn to exercise due caution.

The drug from South America is known to achieve its "zombifying" effects by inhibiting the transmission of nerve impulses in the brain and muscles.
Victims who fall for this are believed to have no memory of what happened to them.
Burundanga is the street version of a pharmaceutical drug called scopolamine. It is made from the extracts of plants in the nightshade family.

It can induce symptoms of delirium such as disorientation, loss of memory, hallucinations and stupor.n powdered form, scopolamine can be easily mixed into food or drinks, or blown directly into victims' faces, forcing them to inhale it, which makes it an ideal date-rape drug.
In developed countries, the drug has several medicinal uses and has also been used as a "truth serum" by law enforcement agencies.

It has also been used as a blackout drug for crimes such as robbery, kidnapping and date rape.
In South America, burundanga is used in popular culture as a traditional potion to induce a trance-like state in shamanic rituals.
Reports of the drug's use in criminal activities first surfaced in Colombia during the 1980s and peaked in the 1990s.

Security Tip...your Hotel Card Key.

Something to think about!!
This is important info. Never even thought about card keys containing anything other than an access code for the room!

HOTEL CARD KEYS
Ever wonder what is on your magnetic card key?

Answer:
a. Customer's name
B. Customer's partial home address
c. Hotel room number
d. Check-in date and out dates
e. Customer's credit card number and expiration date!

When you turn them in to the front desk your personal information is there for any employee to access by simply scanning the card in the hotel scanner. An employee can take a hand-full of cards home and using a scanning device, access the information onto a laptop computer and go shopping at your expense
.
Simply put, hotels do not erase the information on these cards until an employee reissues the card to the next hotel guest. At that time, the new guest's information is electronically 'overwritten' on the card and the previous guest's information is erased in the overwriting process.

But until the card is rewritten for the next guest, it is usually kept in a drawer at the front desk with YOUR INFORMATION ON IT!

The bottom line is:
Keep the cards, take them home with you, or destroy them.
NEVER leave them behind in the room, and NEVER return them to the Hotel Front Desk when you check out of the room. They will not charge you for the card (it's illegal) and you'll be sure you are not leaving a lot of valuable personal information on it that could be easily lifted off with any simple scanning device card reader.

For the same reason, if you arrive at the airport and discover you still have the card key in your pocket, do not toss it into an airport trash can. Take it home and destroy it by cutting it up, especially through the electronic information strip!

If you have a small magnet, pass it across the magnetic strip several times. Then try it in the door, it will not work. It erases everything on the card.

Information courtesy of: Police Service.

PLEASE FORWARD to friends and family

An example of an actual Online SCAM !

Hi folks and visitors,

Below is an actual unsolicited email that a friend of mine received today. Judging by the poorly
constructed sentences and the glaring errors of grammar you can immediately tell that it is
a "FAKE" letter. The Blue VISA logo comes with it giving it an " officious and genuine" look.
These online SCAMMERS are hoping that you will fall into their trap by following their instructions to "update" all your personal and confidential bank data.
No respectable bank will ever ask their client to do all such nonsense...online!!!
So, don't be a victim!

Ps: The spelling errors are so obvious. I have not corrected anything on this fake email.






Dear Costumer ,
Your credit card is suspended, because we notice a problem on your card.
We have alerted that someone may be using your card without your permission.
For your protection, we've suspended your credit card.
To lift this suspention, Click here and follow the procedure to indicate Updating your Credit Card.
Note: If this is not complete April 15, 2010, we will be forced to suspend your card indfiniment, because it can be used for fraudulent.
We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.
Thank you,
Customer Support Service.

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