A small update, assuming anyone still remembers / cares about this story.

Predictably, the opposition (holding a majority in parliament) rejected the (minority) government's program, which led to the government being kicked out of power. Subsequently, and despite all his silly rhetoric, the President (that cruel dictator ) appointed António Costa (the leader of the "left-wing" opposition coalition) as the next Prime Minister.

Well, the process to remove those bets isn't automatic, so they are initially counted - until such time that someone goes over them and manually removes them.

Any reason to party is a good reason, eh?

---

I think he meant the 25^th of December, not today.

And so it did... if there was some semblance of privacy before, it's gone now.

And the interesting part is that even Homeland Security was saying, back in July, that the amount of information of "dubious value" they would be collecting threatened to overwhelm their capabilities - now that a more vague, and far reaching version of CISA has passed, how useful is it going to be for security? (although it could be argued none of its versions ever were)

The story, as covered by TYT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqIRrZE8IZk, "Congress Sneaks CISA Into Omnibus Bill. NSA Gets Everything." (7m01s)

Mitchełł is currently online, so I suppose you can contact him to act as escrow, and still get this over with quickly: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=113670. At any rate, that will likely be faster than waiting for anyone else (if amzonseller agrees), especially since you want to use Paypal here, which most view as far too risky.

Or rather, you wouldn't admit to being wrong, no matter what evidence is put forth - the joint has dedicated a considerable amount of time and effort debunking all the nonsense you, and a few others, have been advancing in your "Flat Earth" thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1009045.0;all), to no avail.



You do understand that evidence is what is required here, not finding a random blog or video making some wild (unsubstantiated) claim, right?

---

Off-topic, but you reminded me of this (existentialcomics' take on Descartes Demon):



Taken from http://existentialcomics.com/comic/81 - leave the cursor over the image to read the alt-text, while in the site, and/or read the explanation section at the bottom of the page.

If you're into sports betting, come join us at the 4^th Free Tipster Competition¹ (shameless self-promotion, I know). The competition was originally set up by FrueGreads, with sponsorship from DirectBet, it's free to enter (so you're not risking anything extra), and you can win up to 1.8 BTC in its current form (plus, everyone that reaches the end of the competition, whether he gets to the prizes or not, receives a participation prize of 0.1 BTC as Casino House Credit at DirectBet).

1 - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1248467

Sort of for this same reason, I would say higher - many aren't paying attention, and many others don't celebrate Christmas (China included).

2015-12-23 CryptoCoinsNews - JPMorgan Memo: $9 Billion Slated For Studying Blockchain And Robotics

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1302042

"An internal JPMorgan memo reveals that the lender plans to invest $9 billion in technology like robotics and the blockchain, according to Business Insider, which claims to have seen the memo. Daniel Pinto, the head of JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank, sent the memo, which claims a major priority is to pursue innovative technologies in which they have been investing."

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/jpmorgan-memo-9-billion-slated-studying-blockchain-robotics


Of course, the general idea is still "use the blockchain and get rid of bitcoin", if they can't control it.

To add to DirectBet's answer, neither "Direct Dice" nor "All-In Poker" bets count in this competition - sorry, but it's just not the type of events that would make sense to include in a tipster/punter competition.

Hello there, Msblogger. It might make things easier (and get you, and this thread, more attention) if you can point to a couple of examples of your work, and if you share with us what are the areas you would be interested in writing about. Some additional information could also be useful, like, what is the pay rate you're looking for, how long would the typical article take to write, and so on. In case you're not sure what these values should be, you can look at what other writers are charging / how long they take / etc. in this section, or simply propose to write an article or two for free under your conditions, and see what feedback you get.

Another avenue you can try out (if you haven't already), is searching in freelance sites like Freelancer, or Upwork for work - several such sites now have Bitcoin specific sections, although the pay is usually in USD (but perhaps you can somehow make alternate arrangements, or at least get additional contacts for future work).

Just a small addition to this entry: they now have escrow, provided by master-P (with the campaign managed by yahoo62278), as you can see in the following post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1301713.msg13341844#msg13341844.

Also, it should probably be added to the Miscellaneous section that "Posts in Local, Alternative Cryptocurrency, Politics & Society, Off-topic sections are not counted".

Yes, he can, but chargebacks are not without risk either - using escrow would be far safer (and faster, if things go wrong).



Sardasa, I'm not saying that you will scam, or that rflxso will scam - I'm saying that the way you both were going about this was riskier than it should be. In fact, if you look back at my very first post in this thread, you will see that I criticized both the lack of escrow (which would be a risk to rflxso, if he went first) and the precautions you were taking to protect yourself (which seemed insufficient to me, and so, posed a risk to you).



You can (and arguably should) report spam no matter where in the forum it occurs.

Several would be willing to do so; plus, look at the list I posted above, and you'll see not every escrow requires a fee.

In relation to who is taking a risk here, that depends on how you go about it: you are always at risk of chargebacks here, no doubt; but, if you require him to go first, for example, he is also taking the risk you won't send the BTC.



Don't take this personally, sardasa.



I'm raising what I see are valid concerns but, if you believe they are nothing but spam, click the "Report to moderator" link in the bottom right corner of each offending post, and a moderator will be along shortly to clean them up.

It's certainly true that the escrow can't prevent a chargeback, but it would protect rflxso from, say, sardasa not sending the BTC. Additionally, and maybe I'm giving escrow too much credit here, escrow might be able to prevent other types of scams, like, for instance, users trading among several of their alts to gain the veneer of trust (not saying that is what is going on here, but you never know ).

---

EDIT:


For safety's sake, contact someone from the following escrow list next time (assuming the current deal is already done): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855778.0 - they'll help you out, step by step, if needed, and (many of them) charge absolutely nothing for it.

No offense, sardasa, but, ideally, you would be sending the BTC to an escrow, at this point (many of them do escrow work for free, and it's always an extra layer of security for both parties).

Also:


1. Would this really help? ID's can be fake/stolen (along with accounts), and the amount is so small that pursuing it would likely be unprofitable anyway.
2. Hmm, can't those screenshots / the pages from which the screenshots are taken be easily edited?
3. ... really?

Well, each case is manually analyzed to ensure there is no abuse of the system, so not all bets may count, in that situation.

Thanks for joining us again.

Good luck with your bets.

Thanks for joining us again, Amin28.

Good luck!