African email scams
The UnInmate
to be bankers in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The pattern is that some rich
fellow died nearly eight years ago and took all his beneficiaries with him,
so now these crooked bankers want me to assist them in spiriting the guy's
wealth out of the country before it is seized by the government as unclaimed
bank funds.
Unlike some people I love reading these things. These alleged bankers don't
write like the bankers I'm accustomed to. North American bankers communicate
purely in abstractions, while the content of these emails is highly
concrete. Anyone enjoy this odd reading material as much as I do?
*spamcatcher = a secondary email address disclosed in public places, not
necessarily to accumulate spam, but to give strangers an opportunity to
establish initial contact before a decision is made as to whether to give
them other, more closely held email addresses. My reply-to on this newsgroup
is a spamcatcher.
J. J. Lodder
> In my spamcatcher email inbox* I routinely get emails from people pretending
> to be bankers in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The pattern is that some rich
> fellow died nearly eight years ago and took all his beneficiaries with him,
> so now these crooked bankers want me to assist them in spiriting the guy's
> wealth out of the country before it is seized by the government as unclaimed
> bank funds.
>
> Unlike some people I love reading these things. These alleged bankers don't
> write like the bankers I'm accustomed to. North American bankers communicate
> purely in abstractions, while the content of these emails is highly
> concrete. Anyone enjoy this odd reading material as much as I do?
Obviously, for they were rewarded with no less
than the prestigeous Ig Noble prize for literature,
Jan
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> In my spamcatcher email inbox* I routinely get emails from people pretending
> to be bankers in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The pattern is that some rich
> fellow died nearly eight years ago and took all his beneficiaries with him,
> so now these crooked bankers want me to assist them in spiriting the guy's
> wealth out of the country before it is seized by the government as unclaimed
> bank funds.
It is curious how the style of spam emails oscillates over the years.
In my yahoo account I still get lots of offers to get money out of
Africa, but in my normal account they've decreased a lot. A few years
ago about half of my spam messages were about viagra, but they
decreased a lot (though they seem to be making a comeback in the past
few weeks). Offers to buy drugs from Canada also oscillate, but
requests to verify my bank details continue as a hardy perennial
--
athel
The UnInmate
"J. J. Lodder" <nos...@de-ster.demon.nl> wrote in message
news:1ikms3a.18f...@de-ster.xs4all.nl...
To quote Canadian comedian Don Harron with regard to a Canadian politician
who won the Nobel Peace Prize: "Nobel, that's 20 miles north of here. He
didn't get even an honourable mention from *this* town."
The UnInmate
"Athel Cornish-Bowden" <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:6etklpF...@mid.individual.net...
Interesting you still get the Viagra emails. I haven't gotten one in my
Yahoo spamcatcher for about four years now. And as a Canadian I don't get
offers to buy drugs from Canada. <wide grin>
(I *can* buy medication from Canada online dirt cheap and perfectly legally,
but have to fax in a copy of my prescription; which rather undoes my
ambition of never needing to darken the doorway of a doctor's office again.
If I buy meds from overseas without a prescription, customs seizes them and
doesn't even tell me.)
One type of spam that appears from time to time, but not consistently, is
the winning-lottery-ticket scam. As expected it's merely an attempt to phish
personal information for use in identity theft.
J. J. Lodder
The Ig Nobel citation is worth quoting.
To:
"The Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using
e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories , thus introducing
millions of readers to a cast of rich characters — General Sani Abacha,
Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha , Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others — each
of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain
access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they
would like to share with the kind person who assists them."
A cast of rich characters indeed,
but the boldness does wear of with repetition,
Jan
the Omrud
> In my spamcatcher email inbox* I routinely get emails from people pretending
> to be bankers in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The pattern is that some rich
> fellow died nearly eight years ago and took all his beneficiaries with him,
> so now these crooked bankers want me to assist them in spiriting the guy's
> wealth out of the country before it is seized by the government as unclaimed
> bank funds.
>
> Unlike some people I love reading these things. These alleged bankers don't
> write like the bankers I'm accustomed to. North American bankers communicate
> purely in abstractions, while the content of these emails is highly
> concrete. Anyone enjoy this odd reading material as much as I do?
I occasionally read one or two of these - you're right, they are quite
entertaining. It's also interesting to investigate the background to
the stories, as they often quote real events and refer to individuals
who did die in the way they claim.
Often they're not crooked bankers, but crooked lawyers.
--
David, in SW France
tony cooper
It's my impression that there's a cottage industry in writing the
basic format with blanks so the letter can be individualized. There's
a certain sameness about many of them that suggests a common source.
The grammatical and spelling errors seem almost deliberate. It's like
there has been some careful research done to determine what will make
the fish bite. I think someone has decided that a letter that appears
to have been written by an uneducated person is more likely to be
genuine because an educated and sophisticated writer would not need
the assistance of the prey.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
Evan Kirshenbaum
> In my spamcatcher email inbox* I routinely get emails from people
> pretending to be bankers in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The pattern
> is that some rich fellow died nearly eight years ago and took all
> his beneficiaries with him, so now these crooked bankers want me to
> assist them in spiriting the guy's wealth out of the country before
> it is seized by the government as unclaimed bank funds.
>
> Unlike some people I love reading these things. These alleged bankers don't
> write like the bankers I'm accustomed to. North American bankers communicate
> purely in abstractions, while the content of these emails is highly
> concrete. Anyone enjoy this odd reading material as much as I do?
If you find yourself short of reading material, my collection
currently sits at 3,369[1]. Plus another 1,858 messages announcing
that I won a lottery or that there's an inheritance for me to claim.
And 3,876 messages saying that there's some reason I need to contact a
bank or other organization.
One of these days, I'm planning on doing an analysis.
[1] Sorry, 3,370. While I was writing this, the CEO of Fidelis
Investment Limited dropped me a line to tell me that there's $1.2
million deposited with UPS in Nigeria for my part in helping get
some money out and I need to contact them and pay a security
charge of $90 to get the money out.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |It's gotten to the point where the
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |only place you can get work done is
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |at home, because no one bugs you,
|and the best place to entertain
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |yourself is at work, because the
(650)857-7572 |Internet connections are faster.
| Scott Adams
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/
tony cooper
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>If you find yourself short of reading material, my collection
>currently sits at 3,369[1]. Plus another 1,858 messages announcing
>that I won a lottery or that there's an inheritance for me to claim.
>And 3,876 messages saying that there's some reason I need to contact a
>bank or other organization.
>
>One of these days, I'm planning on doing an analysis.
>
I don't normally copy/paste stuff this long, but this was in another
newsgroup. It's a new (to me) variation:
Economic and Financial Crime Commission
Plot 1017 & 1018 Coree Bay Crescent,Off
Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent
Wuse II, Abuja
Attention Beneficiary
We are sick and tired of all the complaints we have been receiving
from
foreigners and how they have been promised payment of huge sums of
money
by top Government and Financial Officials without them receiving any
cent in return after they have paid hundreds and thousands of dollars
to
these individuals.
The truth of the matter is that those unscrupulous elements you
communicated with in the past regarding your contract\ inherited
payment
funds are FRAUD SYNDICATES.What surprises us is how they know how the
foreigners fund has been approved for payment.We have sent our team of
investigation and monitoring officers to move into action immediately
and apprehend these bad individuals before they bring more shame and
dent to the good image of this great nation.
Note that the new government have given an instruction to pay a part
payment of $10 million dollars to every contractor\inheritance pending
on when your full payment is ready because another voucher shall be
prepared in your behalf. Kindly reconfirm once again your full
contract\
inheritance payment details for further release. Our primary concern
is
to direct you to the appropriate paying office.
The informations include as follows:
Your telephone number
Your home/office address
Your age and occupation
Your full name.
Based on this issue you are implored to stop every dealings and
communications with anybody Or group of persons in regards to your
payment because the new government have only appointed ONLY the
secretary to the president who is also the special adviser to the
president on foreign contractors/inheritance payment
We await your swift response. Below is the contact information of the
gentle man:
Alhaji Babagana Kingibe
Secretary to the presidency.
Email: alh_b_...@live.com
Office Phone: +234-1-761-9556
Be advised that this body will not listen to any complaint from any
contractor who did not follow this instruction because we have been
empowered to cancel and return all contracts\ inheritance payment to
the
treasury account as unclaimed deposit.
Frankly Yours,
MRS. FARIDA WAZIRI
Robert Bannister
> Unlike some people I love reading these things. These alleged bankers don't
> write like the bankers I'm accustomed to. North American bankers communicate
> purely in abstractions, while the content of these emails is highly
> concrete. Anyone enjoy this odd reading material as much as I do?
In my part of the world, any email from a bank is fraudulent. If it's my
own bank, I usually report it to them, but they all go in the "junk" folder.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> It is curious how the style of spam emails oscillates over the years. In
> my yahoo account I still get lots of offers to get money out of Africa,
> but in my normal account they've decreased a lot. A few years ago about
> half of my spam messages were about viagra, but they decreased a lot
> (though they seem to be making a comeback in the past few weeks). Offers
> to buy drugs from Canada also oscillate, but requests to verify my bank
> details continue as a hardy perennial
I too have had an increase in viagra spam over the last 6 months.
--
Rob Bannister
Jim Karatassos
> In my spamcatcher email inbox* I routinely get emails from people pretending
> to be bankers in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The pattern is that some rich
> fellow died nearly eight years ago and took all his beneficiaries with him,
> so now these crooked bankers want me to assist them in spiriting the guy's
> wealth out of the country before it is seized by the government as unclaimed
> bank funds.
>
> Unlike some people I love reading these things. These alleged bankers don't
> write like the bankers I'm accustomed to. North American bankers communicate
> purely in abstractions, while the content of these emails is highly
> concrete. Anyone enjoy this odd reading material as much as I do?
<snip>
Absolutely. It is fascinating how these e-mails read. One guy's stuff
was so bad, however, that I wrote back offering to correct his work
for a price and thus increase his yield. I sent that e-mail out to my
buddies and most got a laugh out of it...I was thinking of turning
that into a standard reverse solictation, complete with my
proofreading/ESL resume attached, but thought better of it.
Let me see if I can find it...
---------------
From: James Dale
Private Email: jamesd...@hotmail.com
Subject: Inheritance Fund
Date: August 26st, 2006.
Hello,
I apologize if the contents hereunder are contrary to your moral
ethics, but please treat it with absolute secrecy and personal
courtesy. I am James Dale an Auditor in commercial Bank here in UK, in
the process of auditing our bank accounts this Final quarter, I and
one of my colleague recently discovered that there is a dormant
account valued at the
sum $10,000,000.00 (Ten million united states Dollars) and after due
verification of this account we discovered that the account owner is
late and that is why the account has been dormant and as such a
$10,000,000.00 has been lying in the bank unclaimed.
The idea of presenting a foreigner to act as his next of kin came into
our mind, as you know the said deceased is a foreigner as well. Hence,
that is how and why we have contacted you to present you as his next
of kin, so that the $10,000.000.00 will be paid to you and we can both
disburse the fund according to the percentage we will agree upon.
In view of this, I am seeking for your co-operation and understanding
to stand as the next of kin to our deceased customer, to enable us
claim the fund from my bank.
Hence, if this proposal is OK by you and you do not wish to take undue
advantage of my trust, then I hope to bestow on you. Please kindly get
back to me immediately, strictly via my private email address only:
jamesd...@hotmail.com to enable me enlighten you on how we are to
proceed.
On getting your response, we shall agree on the percentage ratio on
which we shall disburse the $10,000,000.00 between us, as we intend to
invest part of our own share in real estate or any lucrative business
in your country, and we would appreciate if you can put us in the
right part where we can invest our own share in your country. I will
not contact any person or company until I hear from you, so as to
enable me decides on what to do next.
Be rest assured that this business is 100% risk free.
We wait for your prompt response.
Best Regards,
James Dale.
NB: PLEASE NOTE THAT IT DOES NOT MATTER IF YOU ARE NOT RELATED TO MY
LATE CLIENT OR NOT; THE FUND WILL STILL BE PAID TO YOU, SINCE I AM
PRESENTING YOU AS HIS NEXT OF KIN.
-----------------------
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am an English language teacher. You can verify this by running a
Google search on "credoquaabsurdum" and reading some of my many Usenet
messages.
You most likely see yourself a self-employed businessman trying to
make some money for yourself in what is considered by the general
public to be a somewhat questionable profession, yet is in truth no
worse or better than being an average lawyer, banker or doctor.
After careful reflection, I agree with you for the most part. I also
happen to feel there is a measure of honor to be had in taking
advantage of the sort of people I would imagine might respond to this
email. What's more, you have found the resources to acquire and
successfully use a hotmail address to send your initial offer out
(thus managing to circumvent a number of spam filters on freemail
accounts) and that took some doing. My congratulations. A lot of time,
energy, and know-how seem to have gone into this email.
So I'd like to give you a bit of advice. Your English is grammatically
imperfect to the point where anyone who spoke English as a native
language would understand that no Briton named "James Dale" employed
in a position requiring a university education could possibly have
written it. A very quick example of this can easily be found in your
third sentence, where you mention that you are "here in [sic] UK." It
should be, of course, "here in the UK." An ever more glaring error
occurs in the last sentence of the first paragraph, when you mention
that "the account owner is late." This means that he hasn't arrived at
the time he said he would arrive at. The most common and accepted
language to use in this context that the account owner "has passed
away."
Moreover, you have made certain cultural errors in your email: as a
case in point, while you are posing as a native of the United Kingdom,
your only figures for the account balance are in US dollars. You would
need to mention the exact amount in pounds, the variable or fixed
interest rate, and an approximate conversion into dollars and/or euros
for your initial email to be properly credible. No bank auditor named
"James Dale" would ever sully the honor of the British pound by not
mentioning in one way or another that it's worth more than the
American dollar, or avoid the finanical minutiae of the account.
Get some advice on your English the next time you set up a phishing
scam. I would advise hiring a professional English language teacher
(like me) in order to make sure that all your time and effort hasn't
gone to waste. I for one believe that a person of your considerable
talents and resourcefulness is certainly worth more than that.
If you're interested, I charge thirty euros per hundred words of
initial text for this sort of proofreading and editing work. You can
pay me through Moneygram or Western Union money orders; sad to say, I
cannot accept personal checks or credit card payments.
Yours,
Credoquaabsurdum
----------------------------
I really enjoy the fact that Nigeria has managed to get so much
negative press on this Internet scam deal. Especially in the part of
the USA where I live, there is a definite perception that black people
are not as bright as white people.
Even the negative press that black people are bright enough to get one
over on white people beats the overwhelming amounts of negative press
black people get every day about how stupid they are (the US media's
general focus on violent crime and its fixation with "dumb criminals"
programs).
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:37:06 -0700, Evan Kirshenbaum
> <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>
>>If you find yourself short of reading material, my collection
>>currently sits at 3,369[1]. Plus another 1,858 messages announcing
>>that I won a lottery or that there's an inheritance for me to claim.
>>And 3,876 messages saying that there's some reason I need to contact a
>>bank or other organization.
>>
>>One of these days, I'm planning on doing an analysis.
>>
>
> I don't normally copy/paste stuff this long, but this was in another
> newsgroup. It's a new (to me) variation:
>
> Economic and Financial Crime Commission
> Plot 1017 & 1018 Coree Bay Crescent,Off
> Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent
> Wuse II, Abuja
>
> Attention Beneficiary
>
> We are sick and tired of all the complaints we have been receiving
> from foreigners and how they have been promised payment of huge sums
> of money by top Government and Financial Officials without them
> receiving any cent in return after they have paid hundreds and
> thousands of dollars to these individuals.
Yeah, I first noticed that one (or, at least, one that takes the same
"you've been the victim of a scam" approach) a few months ago.
Looking at my archive, though, I see that someone triesd something
similar back in May, 2005.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |If to "man" a phone implies handing
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |it over to a person of the male
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |gender, then to "monitor" it
|suggests handing it over to a
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |lizard.
(650)857-7572 | Rohan Oberoi
The UnInmate
Jim, thank you for some enjoyable reading. But what will you do if the
scammer takes you up on your offer of proofreading his/her work for a fee?
"Jim Karatassos" <jim.kar...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4b48571f-2f15-4637...@x41g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
Unknown
On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:46:08 -0400, tony cooper posted:
>I don't normally copy/paste stuff this long, but this was in another
>newsgroup. It's a new (to me) variation:
>
> <snippage>
Excellent! Very creative.
My ISP has a pretty good set of filters, and I no longer see most of
this crap. One thing they do is to remind me once per week, to check
the quarantine, in case something legitimate has stuck to their
spampaper.
I have noticed that the techniques and wording go in cycles. For a
while it was mostly penis enlargement, at another times, financial
scams, undeliverable mail, "you [or your picture] looks really
stupid", you have a postcard, and so on. They seem to come in waves.
--
roses are #FF0000
violets are #0000FF
all my base
are belong to you
Nick Spalding
on Sat, 26 Jul 2008 07:39:07 +0800:
That is so here also. Ones purporting to be from my own bank are very
rare indeed and they take the trouble to thank me for sending them.
--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE
Jim Karatassos
> Jim, thank you for some enjoyable reading. But what will you do if the
> scammer takes you up on your offer of proofreading his/her work for a fee?
<Beaucoup de snip>
Maybe Paypal?
The UnInmate
On Jul 26, 1:26 am, "The UnInmate" <relapcc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> <Beaucoup de snip>
I thought I'd let you do the honours. :-)
Frank ess
My unscientific survey indicates the waves are coordinated with
beginnings and endings of school terms: students bring home the idea
and knowledge to their homes over breaks, and new students encounter
the equipment and procedures when they arrive at a new school. The
come-home effect is nearly instant; the new knowledge effect takes
from a few days to a couple weeks. Ain't education grand?
--
Frank ess
Prai Jei
continuum:
> In my spamcatcher email inbox* I routinely get emails from people
> pretending to be bankers in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The pattern is that
> some rich fellow died nearly eight years ago and took all his
> beneficiaries with him, so now these crooked bankers want me to assist
> them in spiriting the guy's wealth out of the country before it is seized
> by the government as unclaimed bank funds.
>
> Unlike some people I love reading these things. These alleged bankers
> don't write like the bankers I'm accustomed to. North American bankers
> communicate purely in abstractions, while the content of these emails is
> highly concrete. Anyone enjoy this odd reading material as much as I do?
My own gag is to write back, in equally bad English, intimating that we are
already in the middle of something simular which has inexplicably gone
sour, so we need to cover our butts a bit better before starting another
one.
<quote>
Actualy you may be able to help us. Awhile ago we enter a same deal into
Nigeria for Dr. Pesha Mevara Pesholu late of Ondo State University. He has
the movey for the research program which canceled, and our Company took up
the transfer of money to Pesholu cousins in Unitedkingdom.
At Dr. Pesholu request we pay the tax, insurance, anchange and courier, but
we do not hear from Dr. Pesholu consequently. The Bank Account is still
open for transfer of the money but to now no money has been transfered in.
Perhaps being in Nigeria already you could get contact to Dr. Pesholu to ask
whether he is still to deal with us, else to cancel and return he fees we
pay out before.
Perhaps when Dr. Pesholu transfer is completely we may keep account open for
you, but since we have great sorrow we have with Dr. Pesholu the
Financial-director instructs me to say we will not transaction like again,
except the following Condition.
No moneys for tax, insurance, anchange, ourier or other, is to be pay in
advance. All such if you need, to be seduced from the large amount of Dolar,
check of remains in the Pound to be send with. Alternately we may pay by
agreement, recompense for fees by use of clear funds of check.
Important to inclose note of taxes, duties or other which may be pay in your
own Country, to obliviate need to pay the taxes again in Unitedkingdom.
Thank you for your patient and corporation.
Shalim Jei Numudil
Admin Secretary
</quote>
--
ξ:) Proud to be curly
Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply
Peacenik
news:g6g5vp$icu$1...@aioe.org...
>
> Thank you for your patient and corporation.
I love it!
Jim Karatassos
> "Prai Jei" <pvstownsend.zyx....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
>
> news:g6g5vp$icu$1...@aioe.org...
>
>
>
> > Thank you for your patient and corporation.
>
> I love it!
That IS fantastic stuff.
Robin Bignall
I use Mailwasher and never see any of this stuff. My filters are set
to show anything that uses my valid address, so I guess my ISP is
doing a lot of filtering. If I get more than a handful of spams in a
day it's a bad one.
--
Robin
(BrE)
Herts, England
Django Cat
>
A new, and scary variation last week, purporting to be from UBS and asking the
recepient to print the attached invoice. The invoice was, needless to say, a
zip file containing God knows what PC-mangling horror.
DC
--
LFS
>
>
> A new, and scary variation last week, purporting to be from UBS and asking the
> recepient to print the attached invoice. The invoice was, needless to say, a
> zip file containing God knows what PC-mangling horror.
>
Yes, several of those arrived in my work inbox. Lately we've also had
messages purporting to be from the university postmaster asking for
password information, a new twist on the bank scams.
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
Amethyst Deceiver
la...@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk says...
To OldBloke's despair, when that went around here, apparently-educated
people fell for it.
--
Linz
Wet Yorks via Cambridge, York, London and Watford
My accent may vary
LFS
> In article <6f5d8dF...@mid.individual.net>,
> la...@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk says...
>> Django Cat wrote:
>>>
>>> A new, and scary variation last week, purporting to be from UBS and asking the
>>> recepient to print the attached invoice. The invoice was, needless to say, a
>>> zip file containing God knows what PC-mangling horror.
>>>
>> Yes, several of those arrived in my work inbox. Lately we've also had
>> messages purporting to be from the university postmaster asking for
>> password information, a new twist on the bank scams.
>
> To OldBloke's despair, when that went around here, apparently-educated
> people fell for it.
Our computer services people have also been despairing, judging by the
tetchy tone of the warning emails. I think it has more to do with
credulity than education, although one might argue that education should
reduce credulity in certain areas. I am frequently astonished at the
daft warning messages that friends forward to me, that they have taken
at face value. Thank goodness for Snopes.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
It appears that cities in the US are best avoided for the
foreseeable future:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=036536D6-A53E-4646-B220-2A001EB60F46
Whistling Past the Graveyard
By John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, July 25, 2008
Last week, columnist Paul Weyrich reported that there is
credible evidence that Osama bin Laden has acquired twenty
suitcase-sized nuclear bombs from Chechen rebels in the
former Soviet Union and smuggled them into the United States
by way of the Mexican border. If that is true, the al Qaeda
kingpin has laid the groundwork for an “American Hiroshima”
plan that he intends to carry out in the very near future.
Once bin Laden gives the signal, his henchmen will proceed
to detonate their explosives in a number of separate U.S.
cities, leaving them in irreparable ruins and killing tens
of millions of people in the process.
In other words, while the Left, ever since 9/11, has argued
passionately against sealing the southern U.S. border on
grounds that such an initiative would constitute “racism,”
“xenophobia,” a violation of “human rights,” a repudiation
of “American values,” and a “threat to the environment,” bin
Laden has quietly and happily exploited our national
insanity and set the stage, from his cave somewhere in the
remote mountains of Pakistan, for the cataclysmic end of the
most powerful nation in world history.
....
Very, very, nasty if there's any truth in it; although the
"irreparable ruins", "tens of millions" of dead, and
"cataclysmic end of the most powerful nation in world history"
seem unduly alarmist.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
tony cooper
<ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
> In other words, while the Left, ever since 9/11, has argued
> passionately against sealing the southern U.S. border on
> grounds that such an initiative would constitute “racism,”
> “xenophobia,” a violation of “human rights,” a repudiation
> of “American values,” and a “threat to the environment,” bin
> Laden has quietly and happily exploited our national
> insanity and set the stage, from his cave somewhere in the
> remote mountains of Pakistan, for the cataclysmic end of the
> most powerful nation in world history.
> ....
>
>Very, very, nasty if there's any truth in it; although the
>"irreparable ruins", "tens of millions" of dead, and
>"cataclysmic end of the most powerful nation in world history"
>seem unduly alarmist.
The author feels that objections to "sealing the border" are part of
the national insanity of the left and implies that doing this could
solve the problem.
What country's border has ever been sealed? Successfully? The Berlin
Wall was a massive attempt, but it wasn't entirely successful.
The US/Mexico border is the one that most people who want to seal off
anything want to seal off, but that leaves three other borders and the
need for a giant dome to seal off access from above.
Purl Gurl
> LFS wrote:
>> Amethyst Deceiver wrote:
>>> laura wrote:
>>>> Django Cat wrote:
(snipped a lot)
>>>>> A new, and scary variation last week, purporting to be from UBS
>>>>Yes, several of those arrived in my work inbox. Lately we've also had
>>> To OldBloke's despair, when that went around here, apparently-educated
>>> people fell for it.
>> Our computer services people have also been despairing, judging by the
> It appears that cities in the US are best avoided for the
> foreseeable future:
> Last week, columnist Paul Weyrich reported that there is
> credible evidence that Osama bin Laden has acquired twenty
> suitcase-sized nuclear bombs from Chechen rebels in the
> former Soviet Union and smuggled them into the United States
> by way of the Mexican border.
Jericho.
Untrue! Muslims have only smuggled two atomic bombs into
America. One for primary purpose, the second for backup.
Muslims intend to detonate an atomic bomb in Washington, D.C.
while Congress is in full session, when the greatest number
of American leaders are present on Capital Hill. This will
wipe out American leadership and leave the American military
in charge of America.
With the American military in charge, the military will inflict
a nuclear holocaust upon half the nations of our world leading
to radioactive contamination of our entire world killing off
all living things but cockroaches, from which, humankind will
again evolve.
Not so far fetched. Muslims are clear about their fanatic intent
to destroy our world, in the name of God.
Damn! There is that God guy again, screwing up anything and everything.
--
Purl Gurl
--
So many are stumped by what slips right off the top of my mind
like a man's bad fitting hairpiece.
Jim Karatassos
<snipped>
> With the American military in charge, the military will inflict
> a nuclear holocaust upon half the nations of our world leading
> to radioactive contamination of our entire world killing off
> all living things but cockroaches, from which, humankind will
> again evolve.
I saw _Mythbusters_ a couple of nights ago on Discovery. It's not
cockroaches: it's flower beetles.
Purl Gurl
> Purl Gurl wrote:
(snipped)
>> With the American military in charge, the military will inflict
>> a nuclear holocaust upon half the nations of our world leading
>> to radioactive contamination of our entire world killing off
>> all living things but cockroaches, from which, humankind will
>> again evolve.
> I saw _Mythbusters_ a couple of nights ago on Discovery. It's not
> cockroaches: it's flower beetles.
Yeah, those too. I read in a science book our Sixties' flower children
evolved from flower beetles. This works for me. I like this ageless
flower child activity of getting naked, painting flowers and peace
signs on your body, playing rock n roll, dancing, hugging, kissing
and fornicating on some farm upstate New York. A good lifestyle, yes.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<purl...@purlgurl.net> wrote:
>Jim Karatassos wrote:
>
>> Purl Gurl wrote:
>
>(snipped)
>
>>> With the American military in charge, the military will inflict
>>> a nuclear holocaust upon half the nations of our world leading
>>> to radioactive contamination of our entire world killing off
>>> all living things but cockroaches, from which, humankind will
>>> again evolve.
>
>> I saw _Mythbusters_ a couple of nights ago on Discovery. It's not
>> cockroaches: it's flower beetles.
>
>
>Yeah, those too. I read in a science book our Sixties' flower children
>evolved from flower beetles. This works for me. I like this ageless
>flower child activity of getting naked, painting flowers and peace
>signs on your body, playing rock n roll, dancing, hugging, kissing
>and fornicating on some farm upstate New York. A good lifestyle, yes.
Then there's a very bright light in the sky, then you get thrown
through the air, then there's a very loud bang, and then......
Purl Gurl
> Purl Gurl wrote:
>> Jim Karatassos wrote:
>>> Purl Gurl wrote:
(prior snip)
>>>> With the American military in charge, the military will inflict
>>>> a nuclear holocaust upon half the nations of our world leading
>>>> to radioactive contamination of our entire world killing off
>>>> all living things but cockroaches, from which, humankind will
>>>> again evolve.
>>> I saw _Mythbusters_ a couple of nights ago on Discovery. It's not
>>> cockroaches: it's flower beetles.
>> Yeah, those too. I read in a science book our Sixties' flower children
>> evolved from flower beetles. This works for me. I like this ageless
>> flower child activity of getting naked, painting flowers and peace
>> signs on your body, playing rock n roll, dancing, hugging, kissing
>> and fornicating on some farm upstate New York. A good lifestyle, yes.
> Then there's a very bright light in the sky, then you get thrown
> through the air, then there's a very loud bang, and then......
...and then you suffer a severe headache and memory loss because that
bang was your head crashing into closed doors in the belly of a spaceship;
those stupid space aliens never remember to open those doors, first.
J. J. Lodder
Prai Jei
continuum:
> "Prai Jei" <pvstownse...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
That particular line is not an original - it was in an email from one of our
customers, a Japanese setup. The boss of the company speaks reasonable
Engrish but that was one of his howlers.
Jitze
Was it good for you too? You were sure making a lot of noise.
I need a cigarette now, where did I put my lighter... can you
reach my pants for me?
Jitze
Anthony Ferrante
what they said and I now have $10,000,000 in my bank account. I ran
out and bought a new Rolls Royce and quit my job at The Cleveland
Clinic. I'm wearing such large diamond rings, very large and gaudy, on
each finger that you would think I inherited them from Liberace.
And then I woke up and went about deleting the 20-30 of those scam
e-mails I get every day. I wonder if people really fall for that
stuff?
Anthony Ferrante
Dan McGrath
> That is so here also. Ones purporting to be from my own bank are veryrareindeed and they take the trouble to thank me for sending them.
"Rare"?
--
Daniel G. McGrath
Binghamton, New York
John Varela
(in article <1iks8yy.6p6...@de-ster.xs4all.nl>):
> What does 'mangling' mean?
mangle 1 |?ma ng g?l|
verb [ trans. ]
severely mutilate, disfigure, or damage by cutting, tearing, or crushing
: the car was mangled almost beyond recognition | figurative he was mangling
Bach on the piano.
--
John Varela
Trade NEW lamps for OLD for email.
R H Draney
>
>On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:52:43 -0400, J. J. Lodder wrote
>(in article <1iks8yy.6p6...@de-ster.xs4all.nl>):
>
>> What does 'mangling' mean?
>
>mangle 1 |?ma ng g?l|
>verb [ trans. ]
>severely mutilate, disfigure, or damage by cutting, tearing, or crushing
>: the car was mangled almost beyond recognition | figurative he was mangling
>Bach on the piano.
The form of the disfigurement may be pondial...I always understood mangle to
refer to the "cutting and tearing" sense; BrE uses the noun for the laundry-day
device I know as a "wringer", a gadget that would be expected to disfigure by
"crushing"....r
--
Evelyn Wood just looks at the pictures.
LFS
I think mangle may be regional in BrE. We always called ours a wringer.
(Of course, Australians gave us a whole family of them in "Neighbours")
Glenn Knickerbocker
> The form of the disfigurement may be pondial...I always understood mangle to
> refer to the "cutting and tearing" sense; BrE uses the noun for the laundry-day
> device I know as a "wringer",
According to American Heritage, they're entirely different words, the
verb from Old French with the same meaning, the noun a Dutch/German
diminutive traced to Latin *manganum* (catapult).
ŹR
musika
> I think mangle may be regional in BrE. We always called ours a
> wringer. (Of course, Australians gave us a whole family of them in
> "Neighbours")
'ceptin' they was of the wurzel variety.
--
Ray
UK
Skitt
> John Varela filted:
>>> What does 'mangling' mean?
>>
>> mangle 1 |?ma ng g?l|
>> verb [ trans. ]
>> severely mutilate, disfigure, or damage by cutting, tearing, or
>> crushing
>> the car was mangled almost beyond recognition | figurative he was
>> mangling Bach on the piano.
>
> The form of the disfigurement may be pondial...I always understood
> mangle to refer to the "cutting and tearing" sense; BrE uses the noun
> for the laundry-day device I know as a "wringer", a gadget that would
> be expected to disfigure by "crushing"....r
To shed a bit more light on this, In AmE, a mangle is used for ironing or
pressing laundry, not wringing it. It is true, however, that the British
use the word for a laundry wringer.
Ref.: M-W Online and AHD4
--
Skitt (AmE)
http://www.geocities.com/opus731/jobs.html
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
In my limited experience a wringer was a lighter (smaller
rollers) version of the mangle.
Barbara Bailey
abca-51f...@26g2000hsk.googlegroups.com:
Blame the closed captioning, but they're "flour beetles".
LFS
Mangold goes with wurzels, shirley?
LFS
Really? Ours was attached to the copper IIRC and seemed quite big, but
then I was small. The wringer on the washing machine we later acquired
was probably smaller.
musika
> musika wrote:
>> LFS wrote:
>>> I think mangle may be regional in BrE. We always called ours a
>>> wringer. (Of course, Australians gave us a whole family of them in
>>> "Neighbours")
>>
>> 'ceptin' they was of the wurzel variety.
>>
>
> Mangold goes with wurzels, shirley?
Only if you spell it that way. I use the mangel version (as did Joe).
--
Ray
UK
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
The first mangle I saw met free-standing with a substantial,
probably cast-iron, frame. Each of the two wooden rollers was 4"
to 6" in diameter.
See examples at:
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=mangle&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2
http://www.kingswoodmuseum.org.uk/images/Mangle.jpg
Wringers were of a lighter construction with thinner rollers. I
guess that the technological changes enabling the lighter
construction were the use of steel rather than cast-iron and the
use of rubber-coated metal rollers.
http://images.google.co.uk/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=wringer&btnG=Search+Images
The "Historical Clothes Wringer" shown on that page is what I
would call a mangle:
http://inventors.about.com/od/weirdmuseums/ig/Famous-Appliances/Historical-Clothes-Wringer.htm
or http://tinyurl.com/5rg6hj
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>The first mangle I saw met free-standing
Edit that as you choose to make it sensible.
Jitze
Yea - I've only ever heard of it as mangel-wurzel, but I see on
consulting google that mangold is also known. I think of it
as a pre-release or beta version of the beetroot.
And probably included in the diet of Worzel Gummidge.
Jitze
LFS
No, no, Earthy Mangold was his *wife*, not his dinner!
R J Valentine
...
} To shed a bit more light on this, In AmE, a mangle is used for ironing or
} pressing laundry, not wringing it. It is true, however, that the British
} use the word for a laundry wringer.
}
} Ref.: M-W Online and AHD4
Truly!
--
rjv
Jim Karatassos
> Jim Karatassos <jim.karatas...@gmail.com> wrote in news:a160ee44-1cda-
> > I saw _Mythbusters_ a couple of nights ago on Discovery. It's not
> > cockroaches: it's flower beetles.
>
> Blame the closed captioning, but they're "flour beetles".
Oops...
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<la...@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote:
A clothes squeezer intermediate in size between a mangle and a
wringer might be called a "laundry wrangler". Let the credits
roll!
tinwhistler
> In my spamcatcher email inbox* I routinely get emails from people pretending
> to be bankers in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The pattern is that some rich
> fellow died nearly eight years ago and took all his beneficiaries with him,
> so now these crooked bankers want me to assist them in spiriting the guy's
> wealth out of the country before it is seized by the government as unclaimed
> bank funds.
>
> Unlike some people I love reading these things. These alleged bankers don't
> write like the bankers I'm accustomed to. North American bankers communicate
> purely in abstractions, while the content of these emails is highly
> concrete. Anyone enjoy this odd reading material as much as I do?
>
> necessarily to accumulate spam, but to give strangers an opportunity to
> establish initial contact before a decision is made as to whether to give
> them other, more closely held email addresses. My reply-to on this newsgroup
> is a spamcatcher.
In the early 90s, Nigeria adpoted a fraud statute aimed at curtailing
a spate of e-mail scams from the country. The law was codified in
Section 419 of the Nigerian criminal code, and the type of scam became
known world-wide as a 419 scam. John Baker of ADS posted excerpts
from a 1992 Nigerian news article which are still worth glancing at:
LAGOS, Feb 21 (AFP) - A former minister is among some 1,000 Nigerians
suspected of involvement in a huge advance fee fraud wave that has
taken milions of dollars out of the country, press reports said
Friday. The same report, citing "well informed sources in the
presidency," appeared in all Nigerian papers implicating the former
minister as well as a former senator and a well-known singer, though
none of the three were named. Victims of the 419 fraud have been
persuaded, through the use of false or forged documents, to part with
their money or property in anticipation of receiving substantial
financial returns. The nickname comes from section 419 of the
Nigerian criminal code which covers such fraudulent acts, providing
for up to seven years' jail for offenders. A special presidential
task force on trade malpractices has been set up to carry on the
investigations along with the Federal Intelligence and Investigations
Bureau (FIIB). They are looking into about 1,052 complaints over the
activities of 419 fraudsters referred to the bureau by British
detectives, FIIB spokesman Archibong Nkana said earlier this week. A
total 811 of the complaints were against Nigerians based in Lagos, he
told a news conference Monday. Each of the complaints concerns a
fictitious offer of large sums of money, averaging 30 million dollars
per case, to be transferred out of Nigeria to foreign account holders,
police have said. The former minister cited in Friday's press reports
reportedly took 700,000 naira against a false promise to deliver a
cargo of crude oil, the presidential sources said in the reports.
They did not specify the date, but said the deal occurred when the
naira was higher -- at 1.5 dollars -- making the minister's deposit
worth slightly more than one million dollars. Nigerian officials said
the 419 fraud wave started in 1989 and is jeopardizing the country's
economic recovery program. The FIIB spokesman meanwhile said 11
suspects had been arrested in connection with defrauding several
people, including an American, a Swede and an Egyptian The Nigerian
foreign ministry this month also sent a list of 550 Nigerian companies
to diplomatic missions here that have been implicated in 419
investigations.
[end excerpts]
--
Aloha ~~~ Ozzie Maland ~~~ San Diego
Barbara Bailey
> Barbara Bailey wrote:
>> Jim Karatassos wrote"
>> > I saw _Mythbusters_ a couple of nights ago on Discovery. It's not
>> > cockroaches: it's flower beetles.
>> Blame the closed captioning, but they're "flour beetles".
> Oops...
That's why I said you could blame the closed captioning -- that had "flower
beetles" all the way through the show.
blm...@myrealbox.com
LFS <la...@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote:
> Django Cat wrote:
> >
> >
> > A new, and scary variation last week, purporting to be from UBS and asking the
> > recepient to print the attached invoice. The invoice was, needless to say, a
> > zip file containing God knows what PC-mangling horror.
> >
>
> messages purporting to be from the university postmaster asking for
> password information, a new twist on the bank scams.
>
I've been getting a rash of these too, claiming to come from the
"support team" (or some such) at someplace where I can receive
e-mail. I got one not long ago that actually made me think for
a few seconds "better follow this link" before reality clicked in.
Apparently someone at my current place of employment fell for
the one alleging to come from our employer's admins.
I particularly enjoy the ones that purport to come from the
"support team" for a system where I *AM* (part of) the support
team. Well, sometimes one takes one's ego boosts where one can
find them?
--
B. L. Massingill
ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.