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BEST NIGERIAN SCAM LETTER EVER!

Subject: Nigerian Astronaut Wants To Come Home
From: Dr. Bakare Tunde

Astronautics Project Manager
National Research and Development Agency (NASRDA)
Plot 555
Misau Street
PMB 437
Garki, Abuja, FCT NIGERIA

Dear Mr. Sir,

REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE-STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

I am Dr. Bakare Tunde, the cousin of Nigerian Astronaut, Air Force Major Abacha Tunde. He was the first African in when he made a secret flight to the Salyut 6 station in 1979. He was on a later Soviet spaceflight, Soyuz T-16Z to the secret Soviet military station Salyut 8T in 1989. He was stranded there in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. His other Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo. There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time. He is in good humor, but wants to come home.

In the 14-years since he has been on the station, he has accumulated flight pay and interest amounting to almost $ 15,000,000 American Dollars. This is held in a trust at the Lagos National Savings and Trust Association. If we can obtain access to this money, we can place a down payment with the Russian Authorities for a Soyuz return flight to bring him back to Earth. I am told this will cost $ 3,000,000 American Dollars. In order to access the his trust fund we need your assistance.

Consequently, my colleagues and I are willing to transfer the total amount to your account or subsequent disbursement, since we as civil servants are prohibited by the Code of Conduct Bureau (Civil Service Laws) from opening and/ or operating foreign accounts in our names.

Needless to say, the trust reposed on you at this juncture is enormous. In return, we have agreed to offer you 20 percent of the transferred sum, while 10 percent shall be set aside for incidental expenses (internal and external) between the parties in the course of the transaction. You will be mandated to remit the balance 70 percent to other accounts in due course.

Kindly expedite action as we are behind schedule to enable us include downpayment in this financial quarter.

Please acknowledge the receipt of this message via my direct number 234 (0) 9-234-2220 only.

Yours Sincerely, Dr. Bakare Tunde
Astronautics Project Manager
tipnasrda.gov.ng

http://www.nasrda.gov.ng/

CHHHHCHANGES

Apologies to David Bowie. The blog looks different because the CSS sheet I was using didn’t resolve well in Internet Explorer (does anyone still use that???).

I’ll try and stick with this one for a while until I get better at the whole Cascading Style Sheet thing.

NO PARTICULAR REASON

I’m posting this for no particular reason. Ran across it and somehow it made me think that it’s time for us to go shopping in St. Jacobs. (clicky to enlarge)

THE RIGHT MAN WON

So the Liberals managed to hold on to power. A minority government is the result as predicted but stronger than most thought. The pollsters really blew it on this one.

I’m happy. The Conservative hidden agenda peeked out from under its rock and the voters saw it for what it was. Destructive and divisive.

Either the New Democrats or the Blocheads hold the balance of power and should be able to keep the Liberals honest. No idea how long this minority will last but it certainly won’t be politics as usual. And that’s a good thing.

BACK TO IRAQ 3.0

Chris Allbritton, a free lance journalist, posts blog entries from Baghdad. Here’s his posting on the surprise handover ceremony this morning. Be sure to check out the main page for up to the minute news.

VOTE

Forget who I support, the most important thing for Canadians to do today is:

VOTE

JON STEWART ON LARRY KING

I hate Larry King and will not watch his show unless I’m forced to at gunpoint. Which means I didn’t catch his conversation with Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. Luckily, you and I can read the transcript here.
A couple of my favorite lines:
When asked what God thinks of (after stating that God supports the U.S only) ” Happy to have them in the attic, but not so crazy about them in . “
Asked to comment on the upcoming handover of power in Iraq “It’s great. I’m a big handover guy. I’m a big sovereignty guy. I love handing over sovereignty. I prefer to hand it over knowing who I’m giving it to, but I like the way this administration’s doing it. They’re just saying, we’re just handing it over. Maybe it will be a raffle. Maybe it will be the eighth caller. We don’t know yet. It’s very exciting.”

UPDATE: So they jumped the gun and had the handover ceremony this morning. Slick trick. Will this make the militants mad and cause an escalation of the bloodshed? We’ll see.

SUNDAY’S PICTURE

German Fire Engine
It took this picture back in 1999 on one of my trips to Hamburg, Germany. It was part of a display that we ran across one day while out walking. I love it when government has a sense of humor.

30 HOURS AND COUNTING

Tomorrow, Canadians go to the polls. The fact that we’ll end up with a minority government is a certainity but who will be in power is up for grabs. Polls commissioned by Toronto’s major newspapers just happen to point to whatever party the paper supports (The Star - Liberals, The National Post - Conservatives).
I’ve already made it clear that I’m voting Liberal even though I have to hold my nose when I cast my ballot. We’ve lived through over a decade of patronage and waste and I’m not sure that Paul Martin has enough control over the party to change things.
The Conservatives make my choice much easier. Their platform is a recipe for disaster for our country. If we were to give them majority control, here’s what we’d be able to look forward to seeing:
- Canadian support for the war in Iraq including a commitment to send in our troops.
- Canadian involvement in the US Missile Shield plan, a half baked make work project of epic proportions.
- The erosion of Medicare and a move to a two tier healthcare system.
- Dilution of The Charter Of Rights And Freedoms and slavish acceptance of whatever the US Department Of Homeland Security spouts.
- A return to restrictions on abortion and same-sex relationships.
- The return of Brian Mulroney. **shudder**

No thank you, that’s not my idea of .

WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?

Paul Wolfowitz, Donald’s Rumsfeld’s Deputy Secretary of Defense made an interesting comment after the 9/11 commission concluded that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda had no collaborative relationship:
“I don’t need proof of involvement in Sept. 11 to be conerned that Saddam is providing mutual support to Al Qaeda. It seems to me it’s like saying if someone breeds Rottweilers and leaves the gate open but doesn’t tell the dog who to attack, that he’s not operationally involved in the thing.”
I’m not sure what the hell is trying to say but it comes across as an ironic comment after the revelations that his boss okayed the use of vicous dogs by US guards to threaten Iraqi prisoners.
Perhaps, Mr. Wolfowitz, you should be looking for another metaphor.

SPAM

spam
I receive approximately 100 spam messages a day. Luckily I’ve installed Spamnet and it catches 95% automatically.

GMAIL

Google announced some time ago that they were beta-testing a new email service called GMAIL (clever eh?). The only way you can get an account right now is to be invited.

If you go here, you get a chance to win an invite. Just keep refreshing your browser until all 5 numbers come up the same.

I won one after about 15 minutes of refreshing.

UPDATE: They reneged on sending me the invite because they say there was too much “cheating”. I worked hard to win and I think they’re full of it.

WHY I NEED A DOG

A man drives up from the Maritimes with enough guns and ammunition to wage a one man war. His goal, kill people. What stopped him? A friendly dog. One of the strangest stories
you’ll ever read.

See Jan, this is why we need a dog.

POOP MOOSE

For those hard to shop for people, I bring you The Original Alaska POOP MOOSE Candy Dispenser!

(Via Presurfer)

DRM BAD MMMMKAY?

Cory Doctrow of Boing Boing fame recently gave a talk at Microsoft on the evils of DRM. If you don’t know what this is and why you should hate it, do yourself a big favor and check out this annotated version of his presentation. Follow each of the links to learn more about this badly conceived idea.

While you’re at it, check out Cory’s online novelette Down And Out In the Magic Kingdom. Cory now lives in London but he used to call Toronto home. His website is here.

LIFE IS GOOD

I’m writing this on Wednesday night sitting on our deck. The chances are pretty good that we’re going to get rain tonight but right now I’m sitting in our add-a-room and the temperature is just right. No humidity and a cool wind is blowing. My mp3 player is cranking out some oldies through the Bose speakers. Life doesn’t get much better than this.

Today at work was not one of the better ones. Some you put away as memories and others you try and forget. Today was the latter.

So far I’ve listened to Gerry Raffetry doing Bleeker Street, Asia and Heat Of The Moment and right now it’s Eric Clapton and BB King jamming on their rendition of Sam and Dave’s Hold On I’m Coming.

Life is good and music makes it better.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 opens in Toronto on Friday and I plan on going to see it. This will be the first time I’ve set foot in a theatre since The Return Of The King came out last Christmas.

Does it contain truths or lies? Based on the opinion pieces popping up like dandelions on city owned property, it looks like we’ll have to make up our own minds.

Bush lovers such as Christopher Hitchens say the movie is a complete fabrication while Andrew O’Hehir takes a decidely anti-shrub position in his praise.

Love him or hate him, Michael Moore is not known for producing documentaries that generate lukewarm comments.

WHEN “STARS” SING

Retrocrush brings us this collection of albums that should never have been made.

Lenny and the Squigtones??????

(Via Linkfilter)

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

The title of this Cox & Forkum cartoon pretty well sums it up. Goodbye NASA, hello private industry.

UGLY AND STUPID

Yesterday, some brain surgeon from the Conservative Party sent an e-mail to journalists stating the Paul Martin, Prime Minister and leader of the Liberals, support child pornography. These right wing rat bastards are not only nasty, they’re stupid.

With just over a week to go in the campaign, all the polls were saying that the Conservatives and their redneck leader Stephen Harper were heading to unseating the Liberals with the possibility of majority government not out of the question. Not content to run a sensible race and rely on the voters’ anger with the patronage scandal, the Tories decided to keep hammering the Grits in attack ads. Fine, that’s the unfortunate reality of politics today.

What happened to take this race from nasty to ugly? Holly Jones happened. This week the sick insect who raped and killed her last year pled guilty in court and was sentenced to life in prison. During the proceedings, he stated that he had been viewing downloaded child porn just before he grabbed young Holly off the street. Of course this led the Conservatives and their rabid kind to come up with the golden equation - Internet = Porn = Rape and Murder. Forget the gaps in logic in this equation but let’s concede for a moment that they believe this to be true. What to do with this new found insight? Let’s pull out Parliment voting records and make another discovery - Martin votes against goofy private members’ bills outlawing pornography and calling for control of the Internet so that means he supports child porn.

So the boys in the Conservative backroom seize upon this and send out a little e-bomb. The expected Liberal backlash erupts so they try to recall the message (unringing the bell?) and resend it with slightly less flaming language but with inference intact.

What does Mr. Harper do? He blames it on staff who are little over-caffeinated and working too many hours. But he doesn’t denounce the accusation. Instead he says, “Quite frankly, Paul Martin’s record on child pornography is shameful and just another reason why his government must be defeated on June 28.”

Mr. Martin, on the other hand, barely held his anger in check when he said, “This is personal. I’m a father; I’m a husband. He crossed the line and he should apologize.”

Is it any wonder that Michael Moore, in town yesterday for an advance screening of “Farhenheit 9/11, responds with the following when asked what he thought of the polling that puts Harper in the lead:

“I can’t believe that you guys would think about going in that direction, when we’re trying to get out of that direction.”

“I hope this doesn’t happen. Bush is going to throw a party (after the Canadian election). He’s going to be a happy man. (Harper) has a big pair of scissors in his hand. He wants to snip away at your social safety net. He’d like this to be the 51st State.”

The only good thing I can see coming out of this ugly little slice of politics is that the electorate may wake up and see what kind of government we would have under the Conservatives.

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