You are supposed to ask for 419 dollars.

hehe...I just got 419 email...

From: sha_shari09@tiscali.co.uk
Date: 2004/06/09 Wed AM 04:24:06 EDT
To: sha_shari09@tiscali.co.uk
Subject: CONTACT PHONE NUMBER
 
FROM:Abacha`s Family
Lagos,
Nigeria.


ATTN:Sir

I am Mohamed Abacha, the son of the late Gen. Sanni Abacha former Nigerian
Military Head of State who died mysteriously as a result of Cardiac Arrest.
Since after my Father's death, my family is under restriction of movement
and that not withstanding, we are being molested,policed and our Bank Account
both here and abroad are being frozen by the Nigerian Civilian Government.


Furthermore, my mother is in detention by the Nigerian Government for more
interrogation about my fathers assets and some vital document. Following
the recent discovery of my Father's Bank Account by the Nigerian Government
with Swiss Bank in which the huge sum of US$700 Million and Dutch 450 Million
was lodged.

However, there is US$38 Million which my father wisely deposited in my
name in a europe finance and security company which has not been discovered
by the Nigerian governnent.I am therefore appealing to you for your urgent
assistant to move this money into your bank account where I believe it will
be safe since I cannot leave the country due to the restriction of movement
imposed on the members of my family by the Nigerian Government.

However,you can contact for effective completion of this transaction. You
can visit the websites below to confirm the authentication of my letter:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/877113.stm
http://www.usafricaonline.com/chido_cochranabacha.html
http://www.marcosbillions.com/marcos/Dictators%20Abacha.htm
http://www.afrol.com/News2002/nig023_abacha_reactions.htm

Conclusively, we have agreed to set aside 10%of the total sum for settlement
of expenses incured both local and international,30% to you the foreigner,while
60% to be held on trust by you until we can decide on a suitable business
investment in your country subsequent to our free movement by the Nigerian
Government.
If this offer is acceptable to you,then you should immediately upon
the receipt of this mail forward your private phone and fax number
to me to enable us discuss further on the transaction and the
modalities of its execution.
Bye for now and stay blessed.

Best Regards
Mohammed Abacha.





__________________________________________________
Broadband from an unbeatable £15.99!

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/products/broadban...tml?code=SM-NL-11AM

Edited by author 06-10-2004 04:05 AM
(Well, it won't let me post the message because it's the "same as the last message" -- the one that was accidentally posted in (ahem) my wife's name. So, blah blah blah, some text to confuse the diff engine.)

Whoops, forgot to post the updates. mcgees.org is up and running. So are the other sites, except for ScotchFinder, which is coming along and frankly needs a code re-write using newly available perl packages.

Evan, did you note that the BBC site specifically disclaims any involvement in 4-1-9 emails that might link to the story? Must be more than just you who got the email. What if multiple people respond, what are they going to do with all the money? Divide it?

What I love is the broadband add at the bottom of the email...

ummm...wtf?

The infamous "Straw Hat Spam", of course. Watch out for the "Straw Hat Spam" virus. It will turn your PC into a "Straw Hat". And by that I mean "Smoldering Ember".

You have been warned.

i want a smoke and a hat...ok, just a smoke

I've got six new gmail invites. Nobody wants them? I got zero response last time. Forget "worth their weight in gold" -- compare the weight in electrons to the bottle of whisky I got for one of them, and they're worth orders of magnitude more than antimatter.

RE: Cash in the Attic - it isn't as impressive as you think, the spotting a piece of pottery and knowing everything. It is telly of course, but there is research and planning done in advance before the filming.

Basically, an application to appear on the show is made which includes details of items people believe will be worth money. Those lucky enough will receive a follow up phone call. If the shows producers plan to proceed, a researcher and valuer will visit the family to do an appraisal of what they have and its potential value.

So, although it appears like they are just there on the day rummaging in a house, finding gems as if nobody knew they were there, it isn't so impressive. Understandable that they would make sure it was worth filming beforehand, but a shame as I'd love to see them turn up at someone's house to find it was full of utter crap, worth nothing at all.

Edited by author 06-17-2004 03:00 PM
Thank you, Duncan, for enlightening me. Looks like I was completely taken in by it.

It would be great if there were no pre-interview: having them show up in some hovel with a guy trying to pass off aluminium foil swans from mediocre French restaurants as "continental metal avian sculptures".

(The post under discussion)

I don't care for the term bright. The liberal people of this country have a hard enough time getting the ear of non-formally educated people because of the assumption that we see ourselves as smarter than them. This assumption is made additionally toward the young, college graduate, non-religious person. Starting with a term that lables oneself as part of the "bright" verus "not-bright" camp is not a good foot to start on for dialouge.

That being said, I really do wish that there was a central term for those of us with a non-religious world view. I want the community that Christians have. I'm extremely jealous of it and I don't think it's fair to have that level of community reserved for those who believe in a god. Names are a powerful thing and one of the first steps towards forming a community is claiming an identity with a name. I wish there were something less offensive than "bright" and with a less negative image than atheist, but if there is going to be a comming together of like minded people in this regard a name can really help that happen.

Or, perhaps we should take a cue from the gay community as the "bright" folks suggest. They have taken back Queer as a positive naming for their life style, maybe we should reclaim atheist. We could even learn from the black community and greet each other as "yo my atheist what's up".

fo shizzle my atheizle

And we could rewrite 4 to be "Daniel, who slept in the hogshead."

Wow...

I also liked "Sherry, whose butt slept in the sherry butt."

Edited by author 07-03-2004 08:45 PM
Re: Pat Buchanan's Comments on Iraq

Whatever else one might say about Buchanan's beliefs (and I could say a lot), the man is a textbook case of the classic conservative. Considering that, I don't think that his comments ought to be viewed as especially surprising. Buchanan's comments stem from isolationism, and the man's track record is certainly rife with that. The Iraq war is largely a neoconservative baby, and Pat has long been critical of the neocon movement. As the joke goes, "a neoconservative is a liberal who's been mugged", and the neocon movement has managed to import several liberal tendencies (throwing government money away in order to address, without actually solving, social issues; becoming overly involved in foreign affairs; meddling too much in the lives of the public) that classic conservatives like Buchanan find intolerable. The man might be a asshat (I was feeling forgiving today, so I added the "might be"), but he's not an imperialist by any stretch of the imagination.

Edited by author 07-04-2004 06:59 AM
throwing government money away in order to address, without actually solving, social issues; becoming overly involved in foreign affairs; meddling too much in the lives of the public

Way to use non-weighted words, Mike. :-)

The sense I get from libertarians (small-l or big-L) is that they don't see any real difference between an economic social safety net and "faith-based" initiatives; between actions to prevent massive genocide and imperialist conquests of oil reserves; between regulation of vehicle emissions and legislation against sodomy. This is bizarre to me, to compare these actions (that's why I used non-weighted words myself, such as imperialist....)

he's not an imperialist by any stretch of the imagination.

True. But my Patrick Fucking Buchanan comment was more along the lines of "Good grief, I'm agreeing with Pat Buchanan." It's a Hitler was a veggie and a painter, and he went slightly off the rails from that intial starting point moment.

As much as I oppose current conservative beliefs, I think it is a severe disservice to historic conservative thinking to appoint Buchanan as a "textbook case of the social conservative". It's like saying that Stalin is a "textbook case of the socialist". They are not just politicians, they are psychotic motherfuckers, and if the textbooks cite them as prime cases, the textbooks need to be rewritten. (Read the comment above this one.)

That's my big comment. My little comment has to do with the neoconservative/liberal distinction being whether they have been the subject of violence. This is utter horseshit. I tried to think of a more judicious term, but using one would be a lie. Just like "there are no atheists in foxholes" (Do I need a reference for this? How about Paulson's classic essay?), this is a lie spread by one side. The implication of foxholes is that if atheists were to go to war, we would find out that they are all hypocrites. The implication of mugging is that if liberals were actually exposed to the violence in the country rather than living in ivory towers, they would be conservatives.

I guess I should go out and get mugged, to see how being hit over the head would make me pro death penalty, anti abortion, pro war, pro draft, anti privacy, and so on. Pro gun, I could maybe grant. Pro mandatory sentences? I could grant that with a stretch. But the rest? The chapters and verses of neocon dogma attributed to understanding the nature of violence? Nonsense.