Month: May 2007

Everyone needs a hero, and I’ve found mine: The scam baiters, a cadre of funny reverse scam artists who intellectually flail the Nigerian 419 scam artists. This is a must read. Unfortunately, I don’t know if you need a subscription. Generous excerpts:

Scam-baiters have set out to turn the tables on the scammers. The legions of scam-baiters seek to con the con artists, often with remarkable artistry of their own. They tease the scammers with promises of payments that don’t arrive, with wired funds from banks that don’t exist, with Western Union money transfers that go awry. They lead the scammers on wild-goose chases to pick up checks from couriers who don’t materialize, insist the scammers perform ridiculous stunts, and ask them to pose with demeaning signs to prove their commitment to the transaction. Blinded by the same greed that blinds their marks, the scammers take the scam- baiters’ bait and, often as not, end up as heads on the virtual wall in the scam-baiting Web sites’ “trophy rooms.” . . .

“Safaris” are the trips scam-baiters lure scammers into making to remote banks to collect their advance fees, which, of course, don’t exist. Insults, the bitter imprecations hurled at the scam-baiter once the scammer realizes he’s been scammed, are prized as tokens of the baiter’s success in “owning” the scammer—driving him around the bend and provoking him to the spluttering rage of capital-letter curses: “YOU ARE GOING STUPID, ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? YOU FOOLISH WHITE MONKEY AND YELLOW PIG” was the response of one “barrister” when finally copping to his humiliation. But the most valuable “trophies” are photos of

Web traffic drops drastically during the holidays, so I’m not terribly inclined to spend time putting together a great post (“Hey Scheske, you never put together a great post!”), but here are a few things:

Are pro-abortion Catholics Catholic? Of course. Canon lawyer Ed Peters explains (via):

A Catholic’s involvement in pro-abortion advocacy might (depending on the usual criteria) be gravely sinful, but since when is any Catholic who commits a grave sin no longer Catholic? Catholics who commit grave sin are still Catholic, albeit Catholics in mortal sin. If Catholics die in that state, they go to Hell as Catholics, not as former Catholics. The essence of the scandal given by pro-abortion Catholics lies precisely in the fact that they are Catholics. If they weren’t Catholic, what would all the shouting be about?

__________

Won’t need to ask me to leave twice:

An Australian hotel catering for homosexuals has won the right to ban heterosexuals from its bars so as to provide a safe and comfortable venue for gay men.

A little queer Plessy v. Ferguson might do western civilization a lot of good.
__________

Advanced Marketing 301: “Creating Your Own Target Audience”:

Police say elementary school students tipped them off to an ice cream truck driver who was apparently selling $5 and $10 bags of marijuana from the truck. Most customers were in the third, fourth, and fifth grades.

__________

Heck, I didn’t get eight hours of sleep last night because I was watching the Pistons and talking with my wife about a trip out west. I’ll be lucky if I don’t thrash my two-year-old for breathing too … Read the rest