Castro Solves Cuba’s Cash Crisis

MADRID (AFP) – Franco-Spanish tobacco producer Altadis presented the world’s most expensive cigar, the “Behike”, a limited edition of the Cohiba brand and a snip at 375 euros (420 dollars) apiece.

Cohiba released a batch of 4,000 Behike in Madrid to celebrate the Cuban brand’s 40th anniversary, showing off boxes of 40 which retail for 15,000 euros.

The Behike — whose name means a sorcerer, doctor or priest from the pre-Colombian Taino tribe — were made in the second half of last year in the prestigious El Laguito factory in Havana.

Each one was rolled by veteran El Laguito employee Norma Fernandez, who has worked there for 39 years.

The cigars are aged in humidor containers for up to six years and come in the same size as the Cohiba Lancero (192 millimetres/7.5 inches) with the 20.64 mm (0.9 inch) diameter of the Cohiba Siglo VI.

Altadis is distributing 15 boxes of the select cigars to Spanish market “aficionados”.

French specialist publication L’Amateur de Cigare reported in June that Havana cigar distributors had already reserved the remainder of the special run.

US fans will have an even harder time getting hold of one in their homeland owing to the trade embargo Washington maintains against the island’s Communist regime.

That’s one pricey smoke.

Pricey Hooch

LONDON (AFP) – A bottle of whisky which could be one of the oldest in existence goes under the hammer next month, a British auction house said Thursday.

The bottle of Glenavon Scotch is expected to fetch between 5,000 and 10,000 pounds (7,500 to 15,000 euros, 9,500 to 18,500 dollars) when it is auctioned on November 29 by Bonhams in London.

The label reads “Glenavon Special Liqueur Whisky Bottled by the Distillers” — and Glenavon ceased operating in the 1850s.

Even if it was bottled by a related or sucessor distillery, “authentic bottles of Scotch from the 1870s are extremely rare”, said Charles MacLean, a Bonhams consultant and leading expert on whisky.

The bottle has been in the family of a woman in Ireland for several generations.

It is an unusual size, slightly smaller than the traditional 75-centilitre bottle, and is made from olive-green glass.

The liquid inside appears to be pale gold, and the level is surprisingly high for an old bottle, almost to the neck.

I hope that whoever buys invites me over for a wee dram…

FBI Says Stadium Scare a Hoax

 Personally, I thought the stadium dirty bomb scare was a Tom Clancy novel…MILWAUKEE – Internet threats of “dirty bomb” attacks at NFL stadiums this weekend were a hoax, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security said Thursday.

The FBI made the announcement after agents questioned a 20-year-old Milwaukee man in an effort to determine who made the threats, which were posted on a Web site last week.

“The investigation has determined that this is a hoax. The public should be reassured of their security as they continue to attend sporting events this weekend,” said the agencies’ joint statement.

Geek News

Looks like the upgrade went through on my DSL line. The first speed test shows me at 4871 kbps down and 610 kbps up. I’m a little more than 4,100 feet from the remote terminal, so I know overhead is going to prevent me from reaching the max of 6000/768. Still, no hassles, no pains, no fidgeting with equipment: boom, upgrade. Did I mention that it was done *before* the deadline that they gave me? Coolness.

Tech Companies Still Scum

 

Being young and having a cool website doesn’t grant you immunity from being a money-scamming asshat.

 From TechDirt :

Remember how hours before the Google acquisition of YouTube was officially announced, the company first announced deals with a bunch of record labels. While everyone assumed these were basic content deals, the NY Times is now reporting that it actually involved giving those companies an equity stake in YouTube, on which they made a nice profit on a few hours later when Google made the announcement that they were buying the site. That, obviously, helps explain why YouTube wasn’t included in the lawsuits Universal Music announced on Tuesday. However, something about this doesn’t seem right. The article notes that the labels and YouTube rushed to get a deal signed just hours before the Google deal was signed “in part so that it could benefit in the jump in YouTube’s value.” Of course, that sounds like something of a scam. By that point, it was clear that YouTube and Google were signing a deal, and YouTube basically gave the labels a super favorable deal so they could make quick millions hours later when Google bought YouTube at the high valuation Google gave the company. Sounds like a case where YouTube basically gave the labels Google’s cash before any official deal was completed.

It may not be illegal (or maybe it is, I dunno). But it certainly smells like a bit of Roquefort that’s been left on the counter for a few weeks. Something along the lines of “We don’t have the cash to pay you to stop badgering us for infringing your copyrights… Take this stock, though… it’s about to get real valuable, I promise.”

McDonalds Monopoly SCAM

The McDonalds Monopoly game has started again. So what. It was a scam then and it’s a scam now. It’s amazing how much traffic this promotion generates (that’s the point). But what are your real chances of winning stuff? Fast Food News did the math for you:

The odds of winning a Small McFlurry, a Medium ‘trans fat’ Fries or a Breakfast Sandwich are “approximately 1 in 7.2.” So you should win something every 7th time you eat at McD.Not so great are the odds of winning the $50 prize: approximately 1 in 91,697.Odds of winning a Sony Home theater and Flat Panel HDTV: about 1 in 91,697,000. That’s less than winning a few million in the Texas Lottery (which is 1 in 25,827,165).

The odds are even worse for the trip for two to Vegas: 1 in 114,621,250.

The odds are 3.5 billion to 1 against you winning a $50,000 prize.

And as for the $5 million grand prize: “Odds of winning are approximately 1 in 41,497,391,309.” (That’s 41.5 BILLION, folks!) Wow! For the sake of comparison, the odds of winning the Powerball Lottery is 1 in 146,107,962. Much, much better.Of course, for several years of McD’s Monopoly game you had no chance at all of winning a big prize. That’s because the winning pieces were horded by those working on the inside.But McDonald’s has supposedly worked out new security procedures since the fraud was discovered in 2001.

During those years almost all the large prizes, totalling $24 million, went to those in on the scheme.