A Bonnie Lass, Kicking Ass

Green Hills of Tyrol.

Scammers now trying guilt manipulation?

Email scammers can't feel guilt, but they must know it exists. But it's hard to feel sorrow and remorse about not sending your life savings to an imaginary dead person. Check out the latest email from Mrs. Lizy Joseph (mrs_lizyjoseph_2008@yahoo.cn). (Cute Chinese email addy, huh?)

MAY GOD BE THE GLORY.

Hello My Dear,
Compliments of the season and how are you with your family? Hope all is well.

it is true that you don't know me in person,i am Sister Jones. who has been helping Mrs Lizy Joseph, here in our Hospital before she passed away.she called me the night that she died and told me to update you about your compasation.

she said and I
quote:
i'm happy to inform you about our success in getting the donation funds of Mrs Lizy Joseph, transferred under the co-operation of pastor from Highlands Village Church London.Meanwhile,I didn't forget your past efforts and attempts to assist me in transferring the funds despite that you failed me some how.

Now contact the pastor in Abidjan Cote D'Ivoire, his name is:

REV.PASTOR JUDE AMBROSE.
VILLA 101 RUE DES JARDIN DEUX PLATEAU
01 BP 439 ABIDJAN 01 COTE D'IVOIRE
Cel: 00 225 02 34 28 00
Tel: + 225 07 72 34 59
Fax: + 225 21 35 66 48
EMAIL: (revpastorjudeambrose@yahoo.com)

Contact him and ask him to send you a Bank Draft of ($260,000) dollars which I instrusted him to give to you for your compensation for all the past efforts and attempts to assist me in this matter. I appreciated your efforts at that time very much.

So feel free and get in touch with my REV.REV.PASTOR JUDE AMBROSE. and instruct him where to send the Bank Draft to you ok,so that you will be able to start some thing with it in where ever you are now and for your friends and family to see that the Lord Is Good.and after you receive the money try and update me ok.

Please do let me know immediately you receive it so that i can share the joy after all the sufferness of Mrs Lizy joseph, during the operation so that i can see that her heart desire has been carried out. Finally,remember that I had forwarded instruction to the Pastor on your behalf to release the Bank draft to you immediately you contact him,so feel free to get in touch with him, he will send the Bank Draft to you without any delay OK,

so take good care of yourself now.

I wait to hear from you urgent informing me that you have recieved the Bank Draft.

Thanks and God bless for all. Best regards,

Sister Jones

________________________________________
好玩贺卡等你发，邮箱贺卡全新上线！

The subject was "From Mrs Mrs Lizy Joseph compensation for your past efforts." Sounds like the feminine counterpart to Mr. Mister. Insane. Here's my reply:

Sister Sister Jones my dearest ,

All is the well with family many thanks. Feel free to learns how to talks the English , then wire the fullest amount to me in the most Americanest dollars you can ever find without delay OK.

The greatest desires of my heart is this, so tell the Rev. Reverend Pastor Jude Ambrose Augustine Linus Cletus Clement the following instruction: "I before E except after C."

Sorry your imaginary friend is deceased and went to scammers heaven. I donate via an airmail sandwich in case you get so hungry.

May God bless you,
I remain,
Your most lovable failure,
Pauli the blogger
www.estquodest.com

I'm not sure it's crazy enough, though.

Abe Greenwald Badmouths Dungeons & Dragons

Before reading this, I have to echo greenwald's warning: If you have a beverage, put it down. Here's the transcript excerpt he posts:

SIMON JENKINS: What I think is extraordinary to people abroad, is that those of us who are enthusiasts for America and American liberties cannot see why you needed to do these things. You will never persuade the outside world that you have not restricted liberty in America. You will never persuade them that you have not taken out Muslims as a particular group, and you will never, and you never persuade them that you really needed to do these things.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: What things?

SIMON JENKINS: Because-

WILLIAM KRISTOL: What have we done to Muslims in America? What has happened?

SIMON JENKINS: Arrested them.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: We’ve arrested Muslims in America? [LAUGHTER]

SIMON JENKINS: Incarcerated them without trial.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: We’ve incarcerated-

KARL ROVE: Rounded them up?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: ...Muslims in America without trial?

KARL ROVE: Rounded, rounded them up? Name one?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Nonsense.

KARL ROVE: Name one instance.

SIMON JENKINS: The, [UNCLEAR] belabor me all day with lists of people who have vanished. Vanished.

KARL ROVE: You know-

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Well, that-

KARL ROVE: This is on the border of lunacy, with all due respect.

SIMON JENKINS: But you didn’t need to do it, you didn’t need to do it-

KARL ROVE: We didn’t do it!

Excerpt from Greenwald's comments:

Bush-vilification, like all therapeutic mythologies, depends on fantasy for survival. With their vanishing Muslims, torture chambers, and evil corporate overlords, Bush haters are better suited to the Dungeons and Dragons, sci-fi convention circuit than to the political sphere. It’s clear that the delusional expectations placed on Barack Obama by his fans are a necessary counterpart to their own delusional indictments of George W. Bush. That’s why the enthusiasm about Obama is similarly not of a fact-based nature. His acolytes seek in him fake antidotes to fake problems.

Here's the entire transcript, if you really are masochistic.

Memo to Glenn Hall: Nickname Accurate, Not New

Yesterday, Hall started out his "Daily Outrage" with this remark: "I've got a new name for Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio): Dennis the Menace."

Well, it's not really new. Kind of a no-brainer nickname, akin to monikers assigned to me like "French Fry" and "Small Fry". Fortunately, I wasn't scarred for life [eyes begin twitching noticeably....]

OTOH, I heartily agree with the rest of what Hall wrote:

This two-time failed presidential candidate is fighting Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank's (PNC Quote - Cramer on PNC - Stock Picks)takeover of Cleveland-based National City (NCC Quote - Cramer on NCC - Stock Picks) because he fears the merger will result in job losses in his district.

What does he think will happen if National City doesn't get bought? Kucinich's home-town bank is laden with high-risk mortgage loans and posted losses for five quarters in a row before the takeover was announced.

Oh, by the way, National City had already cut thousands of jobs and planned to cut thousands more before PNC stepped in. National City got itself in this mess, and its board signed off on the takeover.

Halting the process now may just end up killing National City.

So give it a rest, Dennis, and stop being such a menace.

Amen. Honestly, why didn't Cimperman go after Kucinich on being bad for business the way they went after him for being "in the pocket of corporations"? I'll never understand Democrat politics.

Pope Benedict on Original Sin

In his regular weekly public audience on December 3, Pope Benedict called the doctrine of Original Sin and "alternative to a vision of despair." Excerpt from the Catholic Culture piece:

"Does Original Sin exist or not, then?" the Pontiff asked rhetorically. He pointed out that St. Paul, in sketching "the basic outlines of the doctrine" in his Letter to the Romans, explains Original Sin by comparing the Fall in Eden with the redemption brought by Christ, the new Adam.

Every rational person recognizes the reality of human weakness, the Pope said. The doctrine of Original Sin goes beyond that obvious reality to address the "ontological foundation" of evil, he said. "In effect, there is a contradiction in our being. On the one hand we know we must do good, and in our inner selves this is what we desire, yet at the same time we feel an impulse to do the opposite, to follow the path of egoism, of violence."

Many people don't seem to know this, but Muslims do not believe in the doctrine of Original Sin. I'm not a theologian, so I don't know if that's why some of them believe it's okay to kill and enslave people. But it does seem that desperation and despair characterizes Islam, even the non-violent part.

Gold Buying Opportunity

Bloomberg reports the slippage of gold (presently $766.30; source) as the dollar has strengthened and oil prices have dropped. If you believe, as I do, that a strong dollar and low oil prices are both temporary, then you will see this as buying opportunity.

Not with the program? Let's be "China for a day"!

In my most famous post to date, I stated this:

It seemed to [H. G.] Wells that democracy includes too many people who aren't "with the program"; there needs to be totalitarian control by "elites" to effect the correct Utopian system.

when musing upon Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism. (BTW, his book blog still going strong.)

Well, I just heard the "China for a day" comments from Thomas Friedman on the Mark Levin show last night, and thought they provided a pretty stark example of Wells's call for "enlightened fascisti". Excerpt:

FRIEDMAN: Well, China for a day is a fantasy, basically. What if we had a government here that could actually make decisions? Okay? That could actually come together, Democrats and Republicans, and make a long-term plan and pursue it?

COLBERT, with sarcasm: Are you saying the Chinese do that?

FRIEDMAN: Yeah, sometimes they do.

COLBERT: But that is a totalitarian regime.

FRIEDMAN: Mm-hmm, and it is a measure of the frustration a lot of people in the green movement have, certainly me —

COLBERT: So you say that for one day we should have a totalitarian government where some ‘benign person at the top’ [He makes quotation-mark fingers] says this is what we do?

FRIEDMAN: No. Basically what I'm saying is if only our government could get its act together and launch a green revolution with the same persistence, focus, stick-to-it-iveness and direction that China does through authoritarian means. If we could only do that through democratic means —

Although Friedman pays some lip-service to "democratic means", he decries the sad result of those means, viz., no "green revolution" because so many poor unwashed slobs like me don't see the need for one. Tim Graham, from the conclusion of the Newsbusters link above, insightfully dissects from Friedman's writing what he likes and dislikes about Democracy:

Late in his book, in his "China For A Day" chapter, Friedman explains his envy that China could effectively ban the thin plastic bag, and it is banned. Why can’t we be like that? But that takes not only a day of enactment, but an eternity of enforcement. Friedman isn’t worried about Day Two forward, because the liberal groups will enforce it (page 374):

...because if it is ignored by companies or local governments, a dozen public interest groups, led by the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, will sue the violators (including the federal government) all the way to the Supreme Court. That is why being China for a day – imposing all the right taxes, regulations, and standards needed to launch a clean power system in one day – would be so much more valuable to Washington than Beijing. Because once the directions are given from above, we would be overcoming the worst part of our democracy (the inability to make big decisions in peacetime), and the next day we would be able to enjoy the best part of our democracy (the power of our civic society to make government rules stick and the power of our markets to take advantage of them.)

In a nutshell, the worst part of our democracy are the conservatives who prevent statism, and the best part of our democracy are the leftist lawyers who insure that statism is enforced.

Put more generally, the best part of our civil society is comprised by activist lawyers who march out and methodically sue corporations who won't bow to the whim of the bureaucrats, whereas the worst part of our civil society are those people who are always "gettin' in the way" by exercising their right to dissent from the prevailing do-gooder dogma. Personally, I always believed that loan sharks and used car salesman were the most worthy citizens, even more worthy than bottom-feeding lawyers and ambulance chasers, but to each his own.

[cross-posted]

Watch Out, Conservatives

I heard Mike Gallagher reading this London Daily Mail piece about the Barack Obama expensive ring gift to his wife and I thought, "That sounds fake." And I was right.

Just like the fake caviar story and the not-born-in-the-USA story, these things are always counter-productive and often meaningless. The guy won the election -- focus on what the guy says and does. I'm all for people saying what they think about his cabinet appointments, for example. I think it worth pointing out that he could be doing more for the economy by explaining, finally, exactly what he intends to do with regard to taxes and the economy, and suggesting that he might want the economy to get a little worse before inauguration day is plausible. But, come on, people, don't go the way of anger and pusillanimity, lest we rightly be accused of Obama-derangement. We're smarter and bigger than that.

Blacklisting for Prop 8 supporters

I wonder if Michael Stipe would say this blacklist was an instance of Exhuming McCarthy. Probably not. From the CBS piece:

Now the anger is moving to the Internet, where supporters of same-sex marriage are posting blacklists - the names and businesses of those who gave money to help Proposition 8 pass.

Chris Lee, an engineer who is an immigrant from China, was shocked to see his name on the Web site AntiGayBlacklist.com after he gave $1,000 to the campaign to end same-sex marriage.

"I was completely disgusted," Li said. "This sort of blacklist should only appear in communist countries, should not be found in the United States."

In Los Angeles, demonstrators called for a boycott of a restaurant whose manager made a personal donation of $100 to the "Yes on 8" campaign.

"She didn't think it would be public record," said Jeff Yarbrough.

Anger over the blacklists brought out demonstrators in Sacramento, where Scott Eckern resigned as musical director of a local theater when he was identified as a donor.

Yeah, I suppose the theater and Proposition 8 don't really mix to well. And, I guess the gloves are off....

Those campaigning to end same-sex marriage drew up their own blacklist, sending letters to large donors to the campaign to save same-sex marriage, demanding equal money or threatening to publish their names.

"Enemy sighted, enemy met."