Got the miner's daughter blues
Jazzy mob the Hot Swing Set have set Australia's richest person to music in The Ballad of Gina Rinehart, an oddly soothing blues ditty captured for posterity in old-fashioned black and white.
Of course, Rinehart is not the first woman of world-historical importance to be transmogrified into melody.
Elton John turned Marilyn Monroe into a Candle in the Wind before reusing the tune for Princess Diana, while closer to home there's the tribute to Adolf Hitler's mistress Eva Braun performed by Australian novelty rockers TISM, Defecate on my Face.
Sadly, The Ballad of Gina Rinehart seems more of a complaint than a celebration - perhaps unsurprising, as the Hot Swing Set's only other YouTube video is titled Eat the Rich (no relation to the Motorhead song of the same name).
Sings front lady Zelda Da, adopting the Rinehart persona: "I've got $30 billion and something to say/The people 'round here are getting too well paid/When they're down underground, makin' my hay/They should be working for $2 a day." At the same time, the song puts Rinehart's earnings at $600 a second. Awfully cruel and unfair. Surely she makes more than that.
A grinding halt
DESPITE dimensional shifts, magic keys and "advanced multidimensional beings in the seventh density", it seems inventor James Kwok's efforts to raise money to build what looks awfully like a perpetual motion machine have come to a grinding halt.
Kwok is the inventor of the Hidro+ electricity generator, a system that is supposed to use "continuous hydrostatic pressure potential energy conversion" to generate electricity.
Briefly, pressure in a water column turns a flywheel, and the water released doing this is returned to the top of the tank.
It's been a long time since CBD had anything to do with physics, but the idea would seem to violate the second law of thermodynamics because it's always going to cost more energy to return the water to the tank than you get out of the system.
Nonetheless, ASX-listed Hidroco Limited, which has licensed the doodad from Kwok, put out a prospectus in early January seeking to raise $3.5 million towards, among other things, "constructing and commissioning a demonstration commercial Hidro+ Generator plant".
Included in the prospectus is a glowing technology report, penned by Wayne Nowland, BSc Hons, PhD, who says that "notwithstanding any circumstances that James Kwok may or may not have experienced in the past, there is no basis for not accepting that the information provided to the author is of the highest integrity".
Could this have something to do with a James Kwok who in 2007 was sentenced to 14 months' periodic detention for failing to disclose his wife and son owned land leased by Envirostar Energy, where he was a director?
Nowland also owns the Spiritual Science website, where readers learn of the WingMakers, "one of the seven Tribes of Light who make up The Central Race".
The site also features scads of useful information about magic keys connected to "the Grand Portal - our gateway to cosmic intelligence and multidimensional reality".
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission permanently stopped Hidroco's prospectus on January 23.
Plane of pain
WHAT is it with casinos and torture planes? It turns out that Crown Casino isn't the only gambling den running a private jet that was formerly used for CIA dirty work.
As CBD reported last week, one of the Gulfstream jets owned by James Packer's Crown Limited appears to have spent some time in the hands of the CIA, who allegedly used it to ferry kidnapped terror suspects off into the loving hands of third-world allies.
It turns out that Slim Jim's Vegas rival MGM Mirage is also running a one-time plane of pain, a Boeing 737 that formerly held the registration number N313P and was allegedly used in the 2004 kidnap of Libyan Islamist militant Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his wife, Fatima Bouchar, from Bangkok.
According to a report in The Guardian last year, the heavily pregnant Bouchar was taped to a stretcher and Belhaj shackled while they were flown to Libya, where they were given up to Muammar Gadaffi's people.
Documents recovered after the fall of the Gaddaffi regime include a CIA flight plan showing that Libyan secret agents were asked not to bring "weapons of any type, cameras, cell phones, or recording devices on board the aircraft".
CBD isn't sure what restrictions MGM puts on its guests' carry-on luggage.
Got a tip?
bbutler@fairfaxmedia.com.au
Frequently Asked Questions about this Article…
Hidroco Limited put out a prospectus in early January seeking to raise $3.5 million to, among other things, construct and commission a demonstration commercial Hidro+ electricity generator plant. The offer attracted attention because the technology claimed to use “continuous hydrostatic pressure potential energy conversion” and because the prospectus included an unusually glowing technical report and promotional material.
The Hidro+ generator is described as a system where pressure in a water column turns a flywheel and the water released is returned to the top of the tank. The article notes this concept appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics — meaning it looks like a perpetual‑motion idea — and everyday investors should be sceptical of claims that energy is produced without net input.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) permanently stopped Hidroco’s prospectus on January 23, according to the article. That intervention prevented the company from proceeding with the proposed $3.5 million raise under the terms in that document.
James Kwok is identified as the inventor behind the Hidro+ generator. The article notes a past legal issue: in 2007 Kwok was sentenced to 14 months’ periodic detention for failing to disclose that his wife and son owned land leased by a company where he was a director — a detail investors may view as a governance red flag.
The prospectus included a technology report by Wayne Nowland, BSc Hons, PhD, who endorsed the integrity of the information provided. The article points out Nowland also runs a ‘Spiritual Science’ website with unconventional content, which some readers may consider when evaluating the credibility of the technical endorsement.
Red flags visible in this case include extraordinary scientific claims resembling perpetual‑motion, heavy dependence on a single inventor, unusually effusive technical endorsements from parties with unconventional backgrounds, prior legal problems involving key people, and prompt regulatory intervention by ASIC — all signs to approach the opportunity with caution.
The article reported that one Gulfstream jet owned by James Packer’s Crown Limited appears to have spent time in the hands of the CIA, and that MGM Mirage owns a Boeing 737 that formerly carried registration N313P, which The Guardian reported was allegedly used in the 2004 kidnap of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his wife. These are reported allegations that raise potential reputational issues for the companies named.
The article describes a YouTube tribute — The Ballad of Gina Rinehart by the Hot Swing Set — that lampoons Australia’s richest person with lyrics about vast wealth (a line claiming $30 billion and another estimating $600 a second). For investors, such popular commentary reflects public sentiment and media attention around mining magnates, which can influence reputation and, occasionally, investor sentiment toward related stocks.
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